For the upper-class-black-genteel Savanna, Georgia coming of age in the 1960s was a rite of privilege according to social scientists and writers who describe upper-class debutante balls as stunning occasions of grandeur with young, athletic black young men, dressed in their class-A's wearing spit-shined boots, ready to make their entrance to the-up-and-coming black society. The young, finest beauties with their whitest gowns, and their short-newly permed hair, and carefully made-up princess faces, appeared as royalty upon Savanna stage as these ladies made their entrances for their debutante ball. These events are riche described in society newspapers and magazines, as well as the authors of southern gothic tales like A Midnight Evil in the Garden of Eden, and Toni Morrison's novels. In Ralph Ellison's novel, The Invisible Man Ellison includes a chapter describing the Battle Royale, portraying the inverse of such a grand occasion as the debutante's ball when he writes about how young blacks are forced to appear as naked slaves grabbing fake brass token as they are electrically shocked by cigar-smoking Good Old Boys in the racist ritual. Marginalized blacks create their own ceremonies and traditions to establish their own events to mark the rites of passage.
