Born to formerly enslaved parents, Julius Neely wanted his children and rural community to have the education he lacked. With no schools open to them in 1908, he built one on his property that educated 1,300 students over forty years.

Little School in the Woods tells the true and inspiring story of a father’s love and determination—and of the restored one-room Neely School in China Grove that is teaching a new generation about the educational struggles of the early Jim Crow era in North Carolina.