About Us
The FREE Zion Project is a research-informed educational center that focuses on Black rural education in “Zion,” a small rural community in Ekron, Kentucky. Our mission is to facilitate community members in creating a curriculum for the Zion Freedom School – an empowering learning environment that encourages Black folks to become critically conscious and better understand their lives as African/Black Americans.
Narrators – i.e., participants – of The FREE Zion Project reflect on their experiences with predominantly white and rural schooling systems in Kentucky. This data is used to provide curricular recommendations for improving the educational lives of Black folks and community-level stakeholders.
*Zion Grove Missionary Baptist Church is our community partner for The FREE Zion Project. The Berea College Institutional Review Board approved the FREE Zion Project on October 1, 2023, and continues approves this project yearly.
"Our mission is to build the Zion Freedom School through careful research, communal obligation, and an intergenerational love for learning."
—Dr. LeAnna Luney, Project Director
The Zion Freedom School is a research-informed conglomerate of courses and programming that:
Highlights the history of Zion Grove School and the Zion community
Provides resources to students and families such as tutoring services, life skill classes, and other services that community members indicate as necessity
Engages Black youth in empowerment courses and activities
Project Trajectory
Oct. 2023 - May 2024
Freedom School Saturdays for adults and curriculum building
June 2024 - Dec. 2025
Member checking and curriculum editing
Jan. 2026 - Dec. 2028
Freedom School Saturdays for youth and curriculum piloting
Our Team
Curriculum Builders
ADULT NARRATORS
Curriculum Builders are adult narrators who completed Zion Freedom School classes to share about their schooling experiences in rural, predominantly white school systems, developing a culturally-, historically-, and regionally- specific curriculum for Black youth. Adult classes at the Zion Freedom School concluded at the end of Phase A of The FREE Zion Project, but Curriculum Builders’ storytelling remains an ongoing endeavor through interviews, observation, and community archive building.
Pilots
YOUTH NARRATORS
Pilots are youth narrators who will matriculate through the two-year Zion Freedom School curriculum as the research team assesses the curriculum based on feedback. The feedback that the ethnographer and research team elicit will highlight successes and areas for improvement for the curriculum according to Pilots’ experiences at the Zion Freedom School. Eligible Pilots will be narrators, ages 7 through 25, during Phase C of The FREE Zion Project beginning in January 2026.
Dr. LeAnna T. Luney
PROJECT DIRECTOR
Our Project Director, Dr. LeAnna T. Luney, is a child of the Zion community. Her scholarship centralizes Black people’s lived experiences in education, using frameworks of Black feminism and decolonization. Dr. Luney works with intersectional ethnographic research methodologies to create and implement equitable policy in educational systems. The purpose of her work is to support students, families, and communities in re-creating and implementing equitable policy and programming in education systems.
Dr. Luney earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Ethnic Studies, with a specialization in Africana Studies, and Certificate in College Teaching from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2021; a M.A. in Pan-African Studies from the University of Louisville in 2018; and a B.A. in African and African American Studies, and Psychology from Berea College in 2016. In 2021, Dr. Luney trained a Lyman T. Johnson Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Kentucky in the College of Education where she worked with the Education and Civil Rights Initiative. She is currently an assistant professor of African and African American Studies at Berea College.
“I am thankful for the opportunity to hear powerful Black voices from the Zion Grove community...”
—Brooklyn Gentry, Research Associate
Research Associates
Our current Research Associates are undergraduate students at Berea College. Brooklyn Gentry is majoring in African and African American Studies, and pre-law. When asked about her research with The FREE Zion Project, Brooklyn stated that "I am thankful for the opportunity to hear powerful Black voices from the Zion Grove community and to help establish the Zion Freedom School, which will educate future generations on our true Black history."
Precious Brown is double-majoring in Sociology, and African and African American Studies at Berea College. When asked about her role in The FREE Zion Project, Precious said that "I am very excited to assist as a researcher on this project to provide the information needed to create the Freedom Zion School that will aid and inspire many Black people within and outside of the community."
Join The FREE Zion Project today!
Funding and Support
The FREE Zion Project is supported by limited funding from the Berea College Department of African and African American Studies, Berea College Office of the Dean, Berea College Undergraduate Research and Creative Projects Program, and funds earned through the Project Director’s involvement as a Mellon Periclean Faculty Leader for the Humanities.
The FREE Zion Project is also supported by donated materials from the Berea College Department of African and African American Studies, The Association for Teaching Black History in Kentucky, and the Berea College Center for Excellence in Learning through Service program.
Connect With The FREE Zion Project
The FREE Zion Project
Email: thefreezionproject@gmail.com
Phone: (859) 985-3400
Facebook: @TheFREEZionProject
Dr. LeAnna Luney (PD)
Email: luneyl@berea.edu
Phone: (859) 985-3400
Independent Contact
If you are not satisfied with how this study is being conducted, or if you have any concerns, complaints, or general questions about the research or your rights as a participant, please contact Jim Strand, Administrative Assistant to the Berea College Institutional Review Board (IRB), at (859) 985-3486 or email at strandj@berea.edu.