As Barack Obama set himself down the course that would lead him to the Presidency of the United States, a small town in Mississippi was also dealing a mighty blow forcivil rights in their own small way. For as far back as anyone can remember, or I guess as far as Brown V. Board of Education at least, the prom at Charleston High was segregated: there was one prom for black kids and another one for whites, and that’s just the way it was. But as the 21st century started ticking away, one man started thinking that in this day and age, isn’t it about time that the prom at Charleston High be integrated?

And who was this bold hero of singular vision? Why it was Morgan Freeman of course. In 1998, Freeman approached the school board about funding an integrated prom out of his own pocket. The school board, well, they just kind of didn’t get back to him and let the offer slide. It wasn’t until working on a new project with Prom’s filmmakers that the issue came up again. Director Paul Saltzman asked Freeman if the offer was still good, and it was, so they were off to the races. So to speak.

The first step was to ask the kids whether they even wanted a combined prom in the first place and at an assembly of the senior class, Freeman put his offer on the table. He asked if there was one kid there that didn’t want to accept his offer, and no one put their hand up. With this kind of overwhelming support from the seniors, plans moved forward to integrate the proms. But because this is the Southern US and racism dies harder than John McClane, some parents started saying “hold the phone.” One white girl after Freeman’s Deal or No Deal assembly says that she doesn’t want a mixed prom, and although she’s in a minority, it’s hardly a voiceless one.

It’s almost easy to write off the people fighting hell or high water against an integrated prom as quaint in a county trying desperately to prove that they’re now in a post-racism phase, but in this part of the country, bigotry’s as much a part of life as Southern hospitality. What happens is that some of the white parents go ahead with organizing an all-white prom on their own, and some forbid their kids from going to the interracial one. Other white kids with more liberal-minded parents go to both, though only because they want to have some sort of celebration with all their classmates.

Testimonials with some of the seniors draw some fascinating insights from the mind of the 21st century teenager, a generation that truly is post-racist, and how they’re dealing with their own morals conflicting with their parents’ backwards logic. Two of the kids featured are a white girl and black boy who have been dating for several years; her father is one of the rare anti-integrated prom advocates that seemed willing to appear on camera. He talks about how he’s uncomfortable with his daughter dating a black boy and how he hopes that as she goes off to nursing school she forget ridiculous notions like dating someone outside of her own race once she gets into the real world. I wondered, sitting in a Toronto movie theatre filled with couples of mixed race, what world he was referring to.

But honestly, I admired this man for at least having the force of his convictions to appear on camera despite his protests that he’s not a racist. Right, and Wile E. Coyote didn’t like bird meat. The parents putting together the whites-only prom get a lawyer to bar the filmmakers from filming any part of it, which is too bad because as its described later by the few kids that went to both proms it sounded pretty lame. Now I’m not saying that the film is slanted, but I think that the fact the people so dead set against getting over segregation don’t appear on camera to explain themselves sends a very clear message regardless.

Thankfully, the focus here is on the kids and how small acts can make all the difference in changing the world around us. It’s not spiteful towards the anti-integration parade, but instead simply and powerfully says that from this point on, these people are going to be left behind to wallow in the past, obviously the way they like it. And while Morgan Freeman got the ball rolling, he’s not the hero of the film. The real heroes are the people that make history without the intent of doing so. These kids just wanted to go to prom together as one class, that’s all.