Urban League executive paints through social work, visual art

James McKissic of Chattanooga said his mother allowed him and his sister a wall in their Cleveland, Tenn., home as they were growing up for drawing on and posting their artwork.

Today, he uses the creativity that once flourished on that wall as the chief operating officer of the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga and as an increasingly successful abstract visual artist.

QWhat made you want to work with children?

AMy family has a long tradition of working with children. My mom is a teacher. ... I’m really about the third generation that works in education. I just chose not to work within the schools. I just do it in the nonprofit sector. When I came to the Urban League, I originally started working at East Lake Elementary. Then through progression and people leaving, I worked my way up to being the COO (chief operating officer) of the organization.

QWhat are your hopes for the Urban League?

AWe’re doing some wonderful work. There are some new projects that we’ve been doing that I hope we can expand. One of them (Career Express) is dealing with ex-felons and helping them to get job training and place them in jobs in construction. People, once they have a criminal background — that is a huge barrier to employment. ... We have a project where we work with high school students. One hundred percent of them go off to college every year. Through some of our relationships with the Community Foundation and the College Access Center, we help them get scholarships, just teach them the whole process about what it is to go to college and to stay in and be successful. I just think if we continue to be open and find creative ways to meet the community’s needs that we’ll always be successful.

QWhat is the biggest need of the children you work with?

AWhat I notice is they really need one person to be that advocate for them, the person who believes in them. Sometimes it’s a parent, sometimes it’s a teacher, an after-school person, a principal. To me, it seems like that’s one of the indicators of success if you have at least one or two people who believe in you. When you make mistakes, they can help you get back on track. When they see you start to have challenges, whether it’s social or academic, they can provide guidance to you. Unfortunately, a lot of students don’t have it. ... I really appreciate when the community steps up.

QHave you always painted, or is this something that came later?

AIt was something I always did. Even when I was a child, I would have paint and crayons and markers. My mom was really open-minded ... She always encouraged us to be creative. ... Lately, I’ve really tried to support the arts ... taking steps to really doing things and being involved. I also love to bring the arts into what the Urban League does. We have professional artists and performers who work with our students. ... We have artists who exhibit in our lobby.