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Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia
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About This Book
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. 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?
Reviews
"And though he energetically describes a minor player in the Watergate scandal as a 'dirty trickster,' somehow the segregationist Senator Jesse Helms, who promised McKissick that he'd "kill Soul City," is never called what he was: a racist."
"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."
"Today, a crumbling ghost town, Soul City is hard to find."
"An engrossing and often heartbreaking look at a singular attempt to achieve some measure of racial equality in the U.S."
"Seton Hall University law professor Healy brings equal measures of sympathy and detail to this quixotic story."
"Most importantly, Soul City succeeds because of Healy's trenchant analysis."
"Now Turner Circle and Scott Circle lead only to dead ends."
"An absorbing account of a visionary project that will engage readers interested in Southern history."
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