While Boy Scouting certainly helped to promote character development and citizenship in the lives of millions of mostly white youth in the decades before World War II, its impact in the black community is much less understood and poorly documented by Scouting historians. Scouting was implemented in the black community in and around Knoxville with a focus on the establishment and operation of the black Scouting division in the Knoxville Area Council (later renamed the Great Smoky Mountain Council), beginning in the early 1930s. As was common during this era, black Scouting operations in the Knoxville Area Council in large extent mirrored that of white Scouting. The black Scouting division operated as a separate and distinct arm of Scouting apart from white Scouting in almost every way. The division had its own organizational committee, leader training program, camping program, summer camp, service projects, fundraising, professional liaison, etc. This situation continued for a number of years until the black and white Scouting programs were effectively and permanently merged with the dissolution of the black Scouting division in the council many years later.
