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Summary
Summary
A New York Times Book Review Editors ' Choice
2021 Hooks National Book Award Winner
The fascinating, forgotten story of the 1970s attempt to build a city dedicated to racial equality in the heart of "Klan Country"
In 1969, with America's cities in turmoil and racial tensions high, civil rights leader Floyd McKissick announced an audacious plan: he would build a new city in rural North Carolina, open to all but intended primarily to benefit Black people. Named Soul City, the community secured funding from the Nixon administration, planning help from Harvard and the University of North Carolina, and endorsements from the New York Times and the Today show. Before long, the brand-new settlement - built on a former slave plantation - had roads, houses, a health care center, and an industrial plant. By the year 2000, projections said, Soul City would have fifty thousand residents.
But the utopian vision was not to be. The race-baiting Jesse Helms, newly elected as senator from North Carolina, swore to stop government spending on the project. Meanwhile, the liberal Raleigh News & Observer mistakenly claimed fraud and corruption in the construction effort. Battered from the left and the right, Soul City was shut down after just a decade. Today, it is a ghost town - and its industrial plant, erected to promote Black economic freedom, has been converted into a prison.
In a gripping, poignant narrative, acclaimed author Thomas Healy resurrects this forgotten saga of race, capitalism, and the struggle for equality. Was it an impossible dream from the beginning? Or a brilliant idea thwarted by prejudice and ignorance? And how might America be different today if Soul City had been allowed to succeed?
Author Notes
Thomas Healy is the author of The Great Dissent , which won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He is a professor at Seton Hall Law School and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. A native of North Carolina, he lives in New York City with his wife and two daughters.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
An attempt to build an American city "where Blacks would call the shots" foundered on bureaucracy, economic headwinds, and racial antagonism, according to this wistful and well-documented history. Seton Hall law professor Healy (The Great Dissent) recounts the story of Soul City, a community intended by its founder, civil rights activist Floyd McKissick, as a showcase for Black economic and political empowerment. Construction started in 1972 on 5,000 acres in rural North Carolina, but the project fizzled after losing its loan guarantees from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1979, leaving behind a subdivision, inhabited to this day, and an abandoned factory where prison inmates now make soap. Healy paints Soul City as a mix of idealistic urbanism, muted Black separatism, and transactional politics (McKissick switched parties from Democrat to Republican and endorsed President Richard Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign in order to get federal backing). Healy emphasizes how racial prejudice contributed to Soul City's demise, but also notes the flaw in McKissick's strategy of basing the town's economy on manufacturing in an era of stagflation and deindustrialization. Full of incisive character sketches and thought-provoking insights into the politics of Black empowerment, this is a worthy elegy for what might have been. Photos. (Feb.)
Kirkus Review
An in-depth account of the rise and fall of Soul City, North Carolina, designed to be a new city focused on racial equality. Healy, a law professor and North Carolina native, provides a comprehensive history of the town, proposed for an area "in the middle of what one roadside billboard boldly proclaimed 'Klan Country.' " Introduced in 1969 by civil rights leader Floyd McKissick (1922-1991), Soul City was meant to be "a new kind of city, one with a stronger sense of community, a deeper regard for the well-being of others, and a more egalitarian distribution of wealth. He also hoped to incorporate the latest innovations in social policy and urban design, boasting that Soul City would be 'a showpiece of democracy in a sea of hypocrisy.' " Throughout this deft historical narrative, the author provides useful context and perspective about the civil rights movement and the lives of the key players in the venture, including McKissick, the government officials who opposed it (one was Jesse Helms, who "had little enthusiasm for the kind of federal programs supporting Soul City, and even less enthusiasm for the project's goal of racial uplift"), the journalists who reported on it, and the people who lived there. Healy ably delineates the complex process of creating a city from scratch, which involved promotion, fundraising, grueling bureaucracy and political attacks, and attempting to convincing people and businesses to relocate to the proposed city--not to mention the devastating series of articles in the Raleigh News & Observer alleging fraud and corruption on the part of McKissick. Charting this significant but overlooked piece of modern American history, the author's intent "is not to assign blame. It is to understand the forces that lead to its failure and the lessons it offers for the pursuit of racial equality today." On that note, the author succeeds admirably. An engrossing and often heartbreaking look at a singular attempt to achieve some measure of racial equality in the U.S. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Congress of Racial Equality leader Floyd McKissick devised an alternative to three solutions offered by the 1968 Kerner Commission to address urban unrest, which were: maintain current policies, improve the quality of inner-city life while abandoning integration as a goal, or encourage "Negro movement" out of central city areas. McKissick's idea was, instead, to create entirely new towns, composed largely but not solely of African Americans, all placed in rural settings. His first, Soul City, set on 5,000 acres of North Carolina farmland and backed by $14 million in federal loan guarantees, would create jobs and housing for tens of thousands of people, offering a clean slate to the urban poor and stabilizing a rural population otherwise moving to overcrowded cities. However, worn down by red tape at HUD, battered by a well-meaning but misunderstanding local press, and relentlessly attacked by newly minted, right wing Senator Jesse Helms, among other barriers, Soul City would die on the vine. Seton Hall University law professor Healy brings equal measures of sympathy and detail to this quixotic story.
Choice Review
A lesser-known leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, Floyd McKissick had a vision and a plan to advance Black capitalism through the federal New Communities Administration. In 1969 he announced the establishment of a new community, Soul City, that would be predominantly Black and located independently on a former tobacco slave plantation in North Carolina's Piedmont. The dream was to create a community with industry, housing, schools, entertainment, medical care, parks, and recreation while uplifting one of the state's poorest counties in the process. With a small cadre of talented Black and white professional planners and dreamers, McKissick wanted to create an integrated garden city during the Nixon administration. However, the government's increasing disillusionment with planned communities, exacerbated by the Arab Oil Embargo, stagflation, and attacks from the segregationist Right, brought Soul City to a screeching halt. This exemplified the deep-seated racism in American society as well as the widening polarization between liberal and conservative agendas. Healy (Seton Hall Law School) does a masterful job balancing these issues. Peter L'Official's Urban Legends (CH, Jun'21, 58-2999) offers an interesting counterpoint, recounting success in an existing blighted area. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers through faculty. --Duncan R. Jamieson, Ashland University
Library Journal Review
In 1969, civil rights leader Floyd McKissick proposed developing Soul City, in rural Warren County, North Carolina. Unlike other planned communities of its time, Soul City was intended to exemplify Black economic empowerment and reverse the migration of Black people to the North. Healy (The Great Dissent) brings the saga of Soul City to life from its inception to eventual demise. First, Healy provides background on McKissick's life and motivations for building the community. McKissick's vision for Soul City encompassed homes, amenities, infrastructure and businesses, none of which existed on the undeveloped land. Healy chronicles McKissick's struggle to obtain funding, his troubles with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as Jesse Helms, North Carolina's racist senator. Additionally, McKissick argued with the Raleigh News and Observer, which published a series of negative articles on the project. Despite these setbacks, McKissick obtained the support of local community members, and his vision proved attractive to potential tenants. Additionally, Healy engages with issues of race and segregation and provides insightful analysis of the project's successes and failures. Included are occasional photographs of prominent figures involved in the development. VERDICT An absorbing account of a visionary project that will engage readers interested in Southern history.--Rebekah Kati, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Table of Contents
| Prologue: "Comes the Colored Hour" | p. 1 |
| Part I | |
| 1 "Black Boy in a White Land" | p. 23 |
| 2 Scrambled Egg | p. 37 |
| 3 "Look Out, Whitey!" | p. 49 |
| 4 Dreams into Reality | p. 61 |
| Part II | |
| 5 Klan Country | p. 81 |
| 6 "Integration Blackwards" | p. 94 |
| 7 Green Power | p. 115 |
| 8 A Fresh Start | p. 134 |
| 9 "The Salad Pickers" | p. 154 |
| 10 Naming Rights | p. 170 |
| 11 "Theory of the Sugar Tit" | p. 189 |
| Part III | |
| 12 Black Elephants | p. 205 |
| 13 Present at the Creation | p. 218 |
| 14 Cream of the Crop | p. 230 |
| 15 Blindsided | p. 246 |
| 16 The Battle of Soul City | p. 259 |
| Part IV | |
| 17 Good Place to Live | p. 275 |
| 18 Pride or Prejudice | p. 285 |
| 19 Maseratis and Microwaves | p. 301 |
| 20 "Sorrow's Kitchen" | p. 318 |
| Epilogue: Mixed Blessings | p. 327 |
| Notes | p. 345 |
| Bibliography | p. 407 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 415 |
| Index | p. 419 |
