How Baton Rouge school plagued by racial tensions and violence drove military ... trends now
On May 3, 2013, violence erupted in the hallways of Woodlawn High School.
As many as six separate fights between unruly students broke out that day - part of an annus horribilis that saw 61 arrests made at the racially diverse school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Looking on in despair was Norman Browning, who had recently spent 15 years volunteering as a sports coach at Woodlawn.
It was to be a pivotal day in the history of the school, the city and, ultimately, America, as it helped drive a seismic split in the community - led by Browning - that has sparked fears over the re-segregation of the nation's schools.
The Louisiana Supreme Court last week ruled that the new city of St George could move forward with incorporation, splitting wealthy white residents from the poorer black residents of East Baton Rouge.
Norman Browning (pictured with his family) spearheaded the campaign for the new city of St George in response to violence and falling grades at public schools in Baton Rouge
Browning, 71, was educated in the Baton Rouge public school system before working there. Pictured above in a Baton Rouge High School yearbook photo
It has been hailed by supporters as a final victory in a ten-year campaign to take back control of the area's 'failing' education system.
But opponents have slammed it as a 'racist secession', arguing it will create a 'white enclave' and leave struggling black communities behind.
Today, DailyMail.com can reveal how the split was sparked by Browning's time at Woodlawn High, a school that became the lightning rod for a community riven by racial tensions.
The military veteran and father-of-three is a born and bred Baton Rouger.
Educated at Baton Rouge High School - which lies within East Baton Rouge, outside of the new city of St George - he graduated from Southeastern Louisiana University.
After leaving the military, he worked predominantly in pharmaceutical sales outside the state, before home came calling.
In the late 1990s, he accepted the offer to pursue his passion for sports coaching as a volunteer at Woodlawn High, also in East Baton Rouge.
The school was founded in 1949 - seven years before the desegregation order following the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling.
In those days, it was all white.
By the time Browning joined, more than half of its students were black.
This was a point of pride for many within the school, who celebrated its diversity, including its mixed football team and orchestras.
But over the past few decades Baton Rouge's public schools have started to struggle, plagued by ill-discipline and falling grades.
Woodlawn High, which has around 1,400 students, currently has a C letter grade.
But most disturbing is its extensive record of violent incidents, many of which have been filmed by pupils and uploaded to YouTube.
Just last year, local news site WBRZ aired disturbing footage of a series of fights.
One shows a pupil dragging another to the playground floor before punching him repeatedly in the face; another of around half a dozen students hurling haymakers at each other in the hallway; and a third capturing a frightening mass of teenagers kicking lumps out of each other outside classrooms.
Some of the brawls appeared to be fought along racial lines.
Responding to the incidents, Corhonda Corley, a parental advocate for the NAACP, cited escalating 'racial tensions'.
She highlighted anger among some black parents that discipline was being targeted at their children, while others were getting away scot free.
The school, for its part, said it had thoroughly investigated the incidents and had taken the actions recommended by its handbook.
St George will have 86,000 residents across a 60-square-mile area in the southeast of East Baton Rouge Parish
St George (right) will become a separate city to Baton Rouge
But its staff have not covered themselves in glory. A few months after the WBRZ report, an assistant principal at the school was placed on leave after CCTV video showed him leading a student down the hall before slamming him to the ground and choking him.
In 2020, a white teacher was placed on leave after sharing several allegedly racist posts, including one that claimed Vice President Kamala Harris had only been picked because of the color of her skin.
Parents were losing faith.
'Nothing is being resolved by the school system,' Corley said.
This was a conclusion shared by many white, middle class parents. But while their diagnosis was the same, their solution would drive a wedge between the community.
In 2012, they proposed creating a new Southeast Community School District, but couldn't marshal the two-thirds majority vote needed in the legislature.
So the following summer they came back
