A boycott launched by civil rights groups Monday kept about 100 black students from classes to protest reinstatement of a white Wedowee, Ala., principal who tried to ban interracial couples from the April 23 prom.
Longtime principal Hulond Humphries, who returned to Randolph County High School after being suspended March 14, had little to say except to tell a newspaper reporter: "I'd like for you to leave town."
Joining the boycott was junior class president ReVonda Bowen, 16, who has a white father and black mother and who has filed a suit accusing the principal of saying her parents made "a mistake" to have a mixed-race child.
On advice from her lawyer, Bowen wasn't commenting either, except to say she wants to be in school today and her lawyer told her to attend.
About 60 of the boycotting black students, many wearing black-and-white ribbons, went to two churches where they discussed multicultural issues and non-violent protest.
An official tally of the absent was expected today, but a student said attendance sheets showed 157 students, 115 of them black, were out.
Several parents and youths said they felt many of the whites stayed away out of concern for safety.
Humphries has been under fire since Feb. 24, when students say he asked an assembly at the high school - where 62% of the 700 students are white and 38% are black - if any interracial couples planned to attend the prom. Students say he then threatened to cancel the dance. He lifted that threat, and said he acted to prevent fights, but the damage had been done.
The boycott was launched by local NAACP and Southern Christian Leadership Conference workers following the school board's 4-2 vote Thursday to reinstate Humphries, 55.
Humphries, principal of the school for 26 years, was criticized in a 1989 report by the Civil Rights Office of the U.S. Department of Education for maintaining disciplinary standards that resulted in "disparate treatment of black and white students."
He also drew fire for allowing students to be transported in segregated buses.
Morris Dees, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Humphries had complained often about students dating across racial lines.
"He has an obsession with mixed-race couples," said Dees.
The town of 900 people in east-central Alabama, (pronounced we-DOW-ee), has been split by the incident, with civil rights groups calling for Humphries' resignation or firing and supporters parading in 100-car motorcades.
-- "I support Humphries all the way," said Tawanna Mize, 18, a white senior. "The man made a mistake. He's human. You don't throw away 25 years of work for one mistake."
-- "They should have gotten rid of him a long time ago," said Wedowee City Councilman John Bailey, who is black.
