A reader who went to the public high school

(class of 1993) in the next town over from mine says that his school’s prom

was effectively segregated, but it wasn’t really a race thing as much as a

cultural one, because some black kids came to the private prom too:

When I graduated from one of your rival high schools, we still had the school-sponsored prom open to all and attended by only black students, and the private white prom, attended by the white kids and the black students who generally tended to hang out more with the white kids than black kids. The reason had less to do with race (though admittedly for some that was the reason), in my opinion, than in music, culture, etc. The white kids listened to country and rap and were more sedate and the school prom featured rap with some R&B, boisterous activity, and always, always gunshots at some point.