William Isom II, the founder and director of Black in Appalachia, will present his survey about rural education amongst the Black community during Jim Crow.

“Black Teachers & Rural Schools: Stories of educators in Appalachia’s one room schoolhouses” is the product of work done by Isom’s Whitesburg-based organization.

It will focus small schools that once populated hollers, bottoms and hillsides in the region.

“Focusing on the mostly Women educators of these spaces, we’ll look at some not-so unique examples and the labor it required to teach Black country children during Jim Crow,” Isom said.

A Hamblen County native, Isom is the founder and director of Black in Appalachia where he produces documentary films, oral histories, research and data to raise the visibility of Black communities in the Appalachian Region.

Founded in 2012, Black in Appalachia works day-to-day in Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia, West Virginia, Western North Carolina and East Tennessee.

He is a sixth generation East Tennessean, father to two grown sons and papaw

The presentation will be in the Foster Chason Lyceum in the student services building at 12:40 p.m. on Thursday, February 12. It is open to the public.