Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Gown has a message
Teen’s prom dress pays tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement.
It’s a prom dress like no other. Milan Morris, 17, went to the Pahokee High prom on Friday wearing a gown that pays tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Emblazoned on it were the faces of those whose high-profile deaths, largely during encounters with police, have inspired Black Lives Matter. Photos of the dress, which Morris had posted to her Instagram account over the weekend, have since gone viral and garnered international media attention.
A large image of Trayvon Martin, the Miami Gardens teen shot and killed by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, is featured across the front of the gown. There are also the faces of Michael Brown, Sandra Bland and others. Corey Jones, the Boynton Beach man shot and killed by a Palm Beach Gardens officer at the side of Interstate 95 in 2015, is also shown.
“It really conveyed such a strong message,” said Morris, of Loxahatchee. “For me to be in that moment, to be bold and courageous to do that, it was a blessing.”
The dress was wellreceived at the prom, and Jones’ face had some people close to tears, she said. Morris, who grew up in Belle Glade, said she and many others around her knew Jones. She also spoke with Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, who was touched by the dress.
A student and standout basketball player at Cardinal Newman High School in West Palm Beach, Morris was at the Pahokee prom with her date and fellow athlete, Adarius Dent, 18, a Pahokee High football player.
The dress was designed by Palm Beach Countybased designer Terrence Torrence, who is also originally from Belle Glade and knows Morris’ family. Based in West Palm Beach, Torrence said he initially had the idea to create a dress inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement about a year ago, but was reluctant to act on it.
When he met with Morris in the months before the prom, they initially talked about her wearing a more conventional dress. But then Morris told her about his idea to create a dress that would feature images of the men and women whose deaths have sparked the ongoing national debate about police shootings and race.
“This year I was like, I really wanted to put the dress out there,” Torrence said Monday. He talked about the idea with Morris, who was immediately receptive.
“She was like, ‘Yo, let’s do it,’” he recalled.
Torrence emphasized that his motivation to finally act on the idea came from Solange Knowles’ album “A Seat at the Table,” which explores themes of black identity and empowerment. Torrence said he knew the dress would get a lot of attention and go viral. But he also said the dress is not intended to be antipolice.
“It’s a tribute to that movement, but it’s All Lives Matter, because every creature, every person on this planet matters,” Torrence said.
It is art, he said. It was a way to remember other young people who have died.
“It was for the youth,” he said. “She was perfect for it.”
It’s not the first time Morris has been in the spotlight. In March, the Sun Sentinel named her the Palm Beach County girls basketball player of the year. She graduates from Cardinal Newman as the school’s all-time points leader, with 2,025. She also hit a single-season 81 threepointers in her senior year, a school record. Her 258 career three-pointers is also a school record.
Later in the year, she’ll head off to Boston College to play college ball there and study premed. She hopes to become an orthopedic surgeon.
She said she’s seen criticism that she’s racist, or that she’s just doing it for the fame or to go viral. None of it is true, she said.
“It was just really to convey the message that this needs to be addressed instead of overlooked,” Morris said.