In Separate and Unequal FRONTLINE travels to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the site of one of the country’s longest battles over school integration.
The East Baton Rouge Parish School District was forced to desegregate its schools in 1981 after a 25-year legal fight. But now, frustrated over the district’s many low-performing schools,a group of mostly white, middle-class parents and business leaders are trying to break away and form a new city with its own separate schools.
It’s a controversial effort that mirrors similar breakaway movements in cities around the country that critics say are reversing hard-fought civil rights gains. If the plan succeeds in Baton Rouge, the new district is expected to be more affluent and white, and will leave behind a population of mostly black students from low-income families.