Parents Angered Over Florida School's 'Redneck Day'
POSTED: 12:20 p.m. EDT October 3, 2003
UPDATED: 12:23 p.m. EDT October 3, 2003
BRATT, Fla. -- Some parents are angry over a "Redneck Day" held as part of a weeklong homecoming celebration, saying it inflamed racial tension at Northview High School.
One black parent said her 10th grade daughter got into a fight over racial slurs during the event Wednesday and was suspended from the school in this rural Florida Panhandle community.
Principal Gayle Weaver said Thursday that she would not have scheduled Redneck Day along with Camouflage Day and Favorite Celebrity Day had she known anyone would be offended. Students are allowed to dress according to the theme of each day leading to homecoming Friday.
"A redneck is an ignorant, white racist," parent Shirley Moorer said.
Weaver said no one complained before Wednesday and that Redneck Days have been held in the past without incident. She said she had viewed "redneck" more as an agricultural term, not a racial one until black parents began complaining.
"Now that we know it is a sensitive issue, we will go back and revisit it," she said.
The 510-student school is 77 percent white, 18 percent black and 5 percent other minority. Bratt is near the Florida-Alabama state line north of Pensacola.
"The black children were offended and angry," parent Sonya Marshall said. "Redneck Day just made matters worse between the black and white students. I don't blame the students. I blame the administration."
Lee Coleman, a Navy senior chief for the Junior ROTC program and one of five minority teachers, denied the school has a racial problem and said he wished the parents had spoken to administrators earlier.
"This could have all been worked out," he said. "That's the sad part."
