This morning's New Orleans Times-Picayune (Friday 5/2/03) had a prominently featured story on the first integrated prom at St. James High School.

That's a public, not parochial school -- St. James Parish is a rural area in South Louisiana, well outside New Orleans. Civil "parishes" in Louisiana are the equivalent of "counties" in the other 49 states. The fact that a single high school serves the entire parish/county should give some idea of just how rural an area we're talking about.

I suppose it's bad news that they had separate black and white proms up into the 21st century (through last year), but good news that they finally united. As usual in these cases, the kids have been anxious to finally intgegrate while adults have been the regressive force trying to preseve the "traditions" of the bad old days.