Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia

by Thomas Healy

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?

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Race, Urban Planning, Audiobook, American History

448 pages, Hardcover

First published February 2, 2021

Reviews

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia by Thomas Healy is the story of one man's dream to build a majority Black city in rural NC and how that dream failed. Floyd McKissick was a civil rights leader who was also the founder and developer of Soul City, NC. His goal in building the city was to help build up the economic fortunes of African Americans in the region of the state. McKissick was a leader in CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), he marched alongside Dr. King, and later became associated with the Black Power movement. Soul City was a continuation of McKissick's vision of Black Power, especially Black economic autonomy.

This book chronicles the constant battles that McKissick faced in order to create Soul City. I liked this book because Healy makes a story about the politics of city planning and developing interesting to read. The book contains a cast of characters that native North Carolinians will be familiar with: Harvey Gantt, Eva Clayton, and Jesse Helms to name a few. Soul City faced many challenges: critics who complained that it was a separatist city, government bureaucracy, the city's name, an obstructionist senator in Jesse Helms, a probing News and Observer reporter, and reluctant prospective business opportunities. Ultimately when it comes down to it I asked myself this question: Did Soul City ever stand a chance of succeeding? It seems not. Whether it was a mixture of it being Black developed, the city's name, or a mix of both; Soul City deserved more and should have been given more chances to grow and succeed. Healy tells an important story that should inform future developers who dream to build majority Black cities as McKissick attempted to do.

Thanks to NetGalley, Metropolitan Books, and Thomas Healy for a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on February 2, 2021.

[Sherrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

***I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway***

Have you heard of Soul City? Prior to reading this book, I hadn't. Soul City was an endeavor by civil rights leader Floyd McKissick to create a town that existed outside of segregation and integration and other racist issues of the 1960s. He wanted to create a place where Black people could thrive, own capital, run businesses, and live alongside their white neighbors as equals. For that time period, this is a truly audacious idea and what is remarkable is how close he came to succeeding.

McKissick inspired many people around him. He managed to gain funding from the federal government as part of the new communities act (the only Black man to do so). He had both Black and white people working hard to make this dream a reality. Unfortunately, racism is real and it's not always a redneck yelling slurs along the highway (though it is definitely that). McKissick had to fight against racist Senators, racist local newspapers, and he had to jump through more hoops than anyone else receiving funds from the same federal program.

I give the author, a white man, a lot of credit for understanding and communicating the subtle ways racism doomed this venture (she said, as a white person...so take a grain of salt with that statement). Very few people would couch their concerns/critiques of Soul City in racial terms...but the effect is the same. It's insiduous. It fed on the average white person's fear of powerful Black people. The author was fair and didn't overdramatize the issues at hand, but by simply laying the facts out it's clear that Floyd McKissick was fighting an uphill battle on all fronts.

Ultimately, Soul City was only partially built and never became the city it was meant to. Part of the land was sold off and is now a prison. And if that isn't the tragedy of America in microcosm, I don't know what is.

[Awoenam Mauna-Woanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always wanted to build cities. Not just any city, but one where everyone had access to everything. As I grew up, that dream seemed basically impossible so I pivoted to just improving existing ones. Thomas Healy's Soul City walked through the struggles Floyd McKessick faced in trying to fulfill his dream -- a post-racial utopia. I'm a bit disappointed I had never heard of Soul City until I checked this book out three weeks ago bc McKessick's efforts are noteworthy and admirable. McKessick, a contemporary of MLK and other civil rights activists, also had a dream and he stopped at nothing to make it happen, despite the endless backlash. When I read about the hoops the US government put him through, I am reminded of first, the power capital has, and second, the logistical complexity that comes with building a city. From picking the right land to convincing the industry to relocate. McKissick even switched political parties to receive more funding.

Overall, Soul City was a really enjoyable yet frustrating read on black history's almost forgot figures. I highly rec for anyone who finds "race, equality, or cities"

[Susan Tunis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am flabbergasted that I've never even heard of this! An important, unknown (to this white woman) slice of history.

[Challen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another piece of NC history that I had no idea existed.
The author could have written this book more concisely and it was quite dry at times.
But the story of Mckissick’s drive in the face of adversity was admirable.

[Bill Sleeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow what an amazing book and what an amazing story! So very well done. Soul City would have been a game changer in every possible meaning of the phrase for African-Americans and for all Americans. So of ‘course North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms and the local media in the form of Claude Sitton and Pat Stith of the News & Observer worked to defeat Floyd McKissick’ s efforts. In my opinion Sitton and Stith both protest their innocence and ‘good intentions’ too much – read it for yourself and decide. Their concerted effort to identify wrongdoing in the Soul City project, motivated by their alleged ‘good government’ goals fails to obscure their decision to skew their work in order to prevent a full and complete presentation of the true financial and planning situation. Even when the data was there in front of them as author Thomas Healy demonstrates. They are ultimately as responsible as Helms who notoriously celebrated his overt hatred of the plan and made no secret of his desire to end Soul City as soon as possible. This outright hatred was recognized and, in some ways, appreciated by McKissick, so Healy claims, because at least then McKissick knew what he was dealing with. The media could come across as friendly when visiting Soul City but then often produce a crushing and incomplete story.

Healy presents here a fair and well-researched history of Soul City along with valuable background on the New Cities movement, the negative influence of HUD bureaucratic failures and the white/black divide in urban planning generally in the 1970s.

Turning back to the ‘game changer’ idea of what Soul City might have been, Thomas Healy uses the words of a Soul City participant and former Mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina to explain:

If Soul City had succeeded, what would it have meant? [Harvey]Gantt paused to consider. It might have changed the history of race relations over the past century, he said, expanding the country’s focus beyond civil rights to the even more challenging issue of economic equality. Had it been successful and we’d seen Black capitalism really at work in a thriving, growing entity…I think it would have done wonders for the psyche of Black Americans and Americans in general, and that model would have been replicated in other counties across the country.

What a loss.


FROM the Legal History Blog (11/17): Thomas Healy’s Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia (Metropolitan Books) was named winner of the 2021 Hooks National Book Award by the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis" (Seton Hall University).

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia by Thomas Healy is a fascinating history about a quickly forgotten piece of the struggle for social justice.

This is one of those books that, for me, is greater than the sum of its parts. The writing is very good, the research is thorough, and the fact I had barely even heard about it (and knew no details) piqued my curiosity. Any of those three elements would have made this book a success for me. But the way these are woven together, history within a narrative and the narrative in some ways being both then and now, all in a very engaging style made this a great read.

I think there is little doubt that racism was the single biggest factor in the demise of the city, but through this detailed examination of what is involved in creating a planned city from scratch we can also see the other more bureaucratic obstacles that would impede any such endeavor. Because racism is built into American institutions and bureaucracies, those obstacles any such city would have faced were significantly larger for Soul City.

I would recommend this to readers who like to read about recent history, especially as it pertains to racial and social issues.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Maddie Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

came back to edit this bc quarter system i did not have time to write a review

this book is great for the light it shines on soul city and floyd mckissick; the narrative choices made by the author (regarding making it fit a clean beginning middle and end etc.) felt a little forced (shoutout to the cohort for unpacking that). i would still recommend this read-- it's a great look into the FHA, post-civil rights era continuations, economy, capitalism/black capitalism.... i could see it linking really well with a discussion of reparations and actual material benefits that ought to be afforded to descendants of enslaved people. it's less academic than something like Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, so it's easier to access, but in doing so it loses some of the nuances of this era and of soul city as an actual place, a utopia, rather than just a project of mckissick's

[Jill Kleis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extra points for the Interesting Black history education, minus points for being mostly a book about government bureaucracy. If you’re interested in the workings of HUD in the 1970’s, this is the book for you.

[Shoshanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best histories I have ever read, but also so sad. :( I loved all the work that Healy did in setting up the history of historic Black towns, of the Garden City movement, of Radiant City, of urban renewal, of the American Civil Rights movement. I love the way that different people in history would show up occasionally. I love how much attention is paid not only on the philosophical aspects of the development, but on the physical and governmental aspects as well.

This is such an important and sad chapter of American history that more people should know about. In the end, Soul City never was realized not because of lack of ability or skill or planning, but because of people like Senator Jesse Helms, who in many ways signaled the rise of the new conservative wing of the Republican Party, wiping away any remnants of the liberal and moderate wings of the party, who made it a mission to deny the dream of Black self determination and a truly racially pluralistic community.

Essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Civil Rights movement and its offshoots, equity in city planning, utopias.

[Noel Welsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, forgotten story of Floyd McKissick’s attempt to reshape capitalism in rural North Carolina. The narrative pretty quickly takes the form of watching something die by a thousand cuts, inflicted by bureaucrats and racists. Definitely worth reading as an elaborate postscript to the Civil Rights Era, but navigating the bureaucratic process may become awfully tiring to readers without direct experience in the morass. A very touching epilogue as well.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-told, compelling history of something I didn't know anything about.

[Ethan Sleeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful and compelling exploration of a forgotten (or intentionally neglected) piece of Civil Rights history. I knew nothing about Soul City before this, and I’m deeply glad I read this book. Soul City could have been so much, to so many people. The idea of a new town, built on principles of radical capitalism, racial justice, and economic empowerment was then, and is now, a beautiful dream, and it’s both horrifying and fascinating (as someone in the planning profession) to watch how it all fell apart. There is out and out racial hatred, and it was valuable to see how it played particularly into the media portrayal of what was, in truth, not so different on paper from the construction of Columbia Maryland; there are clear lines to the discourse in media about development all around us today. But there is also a lot to learn in this story about bad policy, and how race-neutral policy makes for racist outcomes in an unjust system. There are also some abject lessons about the challenges of urban planning, and the disconnect between what works in planning and what policy directives demand. It’s an excellent read, at times maddening to watch it happen, but always deeply relevant and fascinating. I also thought it was a testament to the power of a vision for something better, and how working towards a just-er community can make a better place for everyone.

[Linda Janssen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The concept of Thomas Healy's Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia is intriguing: lifelong racial activist Floyd McKissick's dream - aided by the efforts of many and surprisingly funded by the US Government - to build a Black city in rural North Carolina in the fragmented aftermath of the 1960s Civil Rights movement. Named Soul City, this venture was dedicated to racial equality and Black economic empowerment. Well researched and meticulously documented, this book chronicles not only the rise and fall of this little known utopian endeavor, but also the 20th century civil rights movement itself. Law professor Healy's background as a journalist serves him well, bringing this timely, true story to life with clean, evocative prose, and the narrative sensibility and flow of fiction.

I was provided an advanced reader copy by Henry Holt & Company and NetGalley; views are entirely my own.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was already on a tour of utopian city-building projects when I stumbled upon this book. (Side note: I stumbled upon it in an actual bookstore, the first time I had been in one of those in a year. It was great!) The concept -- of a Black-built city project run by a former CORE leader on a former slave plantation in the 1970s -- was fascinating. I don't think it's a spoiler to reveal that it was not built. Also, the gut-wrenching kicker is revealed in the intro: what was to have been the main industrial building ends up becoming a workplace for basically-unpaid prison labor.

The main character, Floyd McKissick, is a civil rights hero who throws his hat in with Nixon to further the cause of Black Capitalism, is a great leading man. There's interesting stuff to learn in here, and it tells a good story about how an ambitious project was waylaid by tepid government support. DC promises to help through a project to help fund the creations of new towns, but then drags its feet after the project is planned around it, with further gear thrown in the sands by the racist opposition of North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms.

There's also a revealing case study of the downside to crusading journalism. Soul City was the subject of a progression of unfair newspaper articles, which significantly undermined the public view of the project. The most damaging was a series of investigations from a local reporter who was fixated (as many good reporters are) on exposing government waste. Much of what he found what technically true but picayune and misrepresenting. This book gives a compelling account of how those articles were both wrong-headed and potentially ruinous for Soul City.

As a narrative this book about huge themes like race and the tension between purity and pragmatism is dissipated by the fact that much the action centers around the frustrations of government bureaucracy. You spend a lot of time feeling deadened while waiting along with the idealists to see if the next step in the government loan guarantees will go through. Sometimes this is because Helms or other opponents are putting fingers on the scale; other times it's just because federal programs are slow an ineffective. At least that fatigue seems like an accurate reproduction of what it must have felt like to feel Soul City slip away.

[Rick Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's pretty crazy to think that part of the Great Society reforms was the construction of brand new cities throughout the US. This is the tale of "Soul City" proposed to be built in North Carolina and spearheaded by Floyd McKissick, leader of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) in the 60's. CORE was one of the "big 4" civil rights groups (CORE, SCLC, SNCC, and NAACP) at the time and turned to the left under McKissicks leadership. It's interesting to note that the Black Panthers and Nation of Islam seem to never enter the "big 4" though their influence was widespread.

McKissick came down on the Black Power side of the equation and had lobbied for what he called a "radical capitalist" approach to economics. His dream was to build Soul City as a black run city. Integrationists both within the government and in the movement fought what they believed to be McKissicks black centric approach. This was one of the fundamental disputes which led to government inaction on the project and lukewarm support from the Movement.

McKissick didn't help himself by endorsing Nixon and becoming a Republican, a quid pro quo for funding from the Nixon administration.

I enjoyed the book as it delved into how politics worked behind the scenes. It's more of an inside view of what was going on in the country throughout the late 60's and all through the 70's.

It's not the place to begin reading if you don't have a basic knowledge of the times, but it is fascinating if you understand the context and history.

[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly detailed history on the attempt to build a separate society for Africa Americans in North Carolina in the 70's. Utopian histories are always interesting and always seem to fail in their own peculiar way: Soul City did seem to get slammed by the difficult financing everyone faced in the high inflation environment of the 1970’s. However, what was lacking a bit here was what the actual living at the community felt like for ordinary residents: the book goes into so much detail of what’s happening behind the scenes with permissions, funding and external actors exploring the highly political aspects of this community that it sort of misses what the actual lived experience was actually like. That said, it's still a very interesting chapter on an underreported experiment in the midst of a very biased environment.

[Ranjani Sheshadri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very detailed breakdown of the rise and fall of what should have been a thriving, populous example of Black prosperity that dies the slow death of bureaucracy and poisonous political winds. However, this book is going to be a little hard to get through if you're not willing to read about constant bureaucracy, loans, and construction delays, as well as the ways in which McKissick had to court the favor of the Nixon administration and the Republican party to pull funding from its coffers. It is beyond tragic—and cruelly ironic—what Soul City eventually becomes, especially because it was sabotaged by the very government it thought, perhaps naively, would let it exist.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soul City in North Carolina was a HUD community that Nixon endorsed after Floyd McKissack sought funding for a suburban community focused on Africa Americans. He sought Republican support and got it but eventually ran into trouble with the Carter Administration and double digit inflation. McKissack had trouble attracting people to come and most importantly investors for jobs. It still exists but is slowing deteriorating away.

[Stacy]

The topic sounded so interesting, but I couldn't get into this book. I wanted to read about what it was like to live there and how the city became a ghost town. Maybe the book gets there eventually, but after many pages of civil rights history 101 and lots of talk about building permits, etc., I just lost interest.

[Luke Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soul City is the true story of Floyd McKissick, an African-American man and Civil Rights leader, who decides to start his own town in rural North Carolina. Taking advantage of newly passed legislation from the U.S. government, he intends to create a Marcus Garvey-esque movement that is not "Back to Africa" but instead "Back to the South". Created primarily for the descendents of former slaves, McKissick hopes to bring home those who have found life away from the South not what they had hoped it would be.

The book starts out incredibly interesting as the reader enjoys a biography of McKissick from his boyhood through his days as a Civil Rights leader and activist. It's around a good third of the way into the book before the work to create Soul City even really begins. I actually enjoyed this first part of the book more than the later sections which is often repetitious with account after account of McKissick fighting with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the funds he has been promised. Though McKissick's dedication to Soul City is highly applaudable, the project does seem unlikely of success.

One will no doubt ask themselves that quesion - was Soul City was doomed from the start? Labelled from the beginning as a seperatist enclave, often defamated in the press, sabotagued by government departments and racist government officials (namely Jesse Helms), and built in an already economically disadvantaged area should McKissick not have seen the writing on the wall to begin with? I ask because I don't know, and that is a question each reader will have to answer for themselves. I do not feel as though McKissick is deserving of the majority of the blame, infact just the opposite. I see his hopes as more ahead of the times as this book takes places in the late '60s to mid '70s primarily. Over a half century later, America still has many problems with racism. Even a century and a half post-Civil War not just African Americans but for all non-white Americans equality has yet to be attained. Even as I read this book, the story of a white gunman killing (primarily female) Asian-Americans in Atlanta has been headline news.

But despite how you feel about whether or not Soul City was a fool's errand or not, the book is well worth the read. It's an interesting look at the life of a Civil Right leader who actually died in his home at an old age instead of being assassinated for a change. It's one more example of the way structural racism has hurt not just a minority population but the country as a whole. Much of what McKissick was doing / did was very positive - the hospital and water treatment facilities especially. The issue of racism is not the dominate theme here, the book is never preachy, so if you're looking for a history book that deals with African Americans trying to better their lives without hitting you over the head with the inequality that very much does exist, this is a book I would definitely recommend.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I am friends with the author. I will do my best to be unbiased in my review.

I grew up in NC, and I was a small child when Soul City was being built (and yes, that is the actual name of the city; Soul City is not a nickname). As a fan of history, I was surprised I had never heard of Floyd McKissick's attempt to build a town for Black empowerment through a new city in a poor, depressed, Klan heavy section of NC. Unlike other utopian plans, this one was not going to be a collective/commune city. McKissick was a capitalist at heart and he wanted a city where Black people worked and made money. It was an audacious plan, and one that almost worked.

Through McKissick's work in the Civil Rights Movement, he became convinced that the way to help Black people was through economic opportunity. At the time, in the late 60's, Black people were migrating to the North in search of better economic opportunities; some found it, most did not. At the same time, there was a population boom, and new cities were being created. Not all of these new cities had been successful, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development felt there was potential for new cities, and were guaranteeing loans for approved projects. McKissick got the idea to build a new city, but one where Black people would be in charge. The city would be called Soul City.

This book is the story of Floyd McKissick, his attempt to create a new city, the challenges he faced, and the opponents to his project (for anyone familiar with NC politics, they will not be surprised that one of the chief opponent had the first name of "Jesse"). As a history, it is a fascinating read of a plan so audacious, made by those without the background and experience you would think necessary to undertake such a venture, but at the same time, how close they came to success. It was a testament to McKissick's character to have such a dream and get others to share in his vision.

There is, however, another reason to read this book, and it is its relevance to America today. Throughout the book, there are parallels to the world of today. Haunting parallels, that made me question, has there been any progress in racial equality over the past 50 years? As a white person (another disclosure), I liked to think that there has been ongoing progress in race equality (sometimes very slow progress, but progress), and that the events of the last few years were the anomaly. While reading "Soul City", and looking at the parallels, I'm worried that the progress that I have seen is the anomaly.

I would highly recommend this book.

[Paul Bindel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed account about the 12-year rise and fall of Floyd McKissick’s dream to develop a new city in the middle of rural North Carolina. McKissick, a Civil-rights leader and lawyer, held a unique utopic vision, as well as unique access to halls of power.

This is a depressing story. In some ways, it is in conversation with “Seeing Like a State,” which chronicles the many 20th century top-down social engineering projects that also didn’t pan out. The site for Soul City—on a former plantation in a poor remote rural county of North Carolina—was perhaps its greatest liability, and the idealism that McKissick and his entourage took to developing all municipal infrastructure from total scratch (hospitals, wastewater, schools, roads, to say nothing of housing and industrial buildings) is somewhere between foolhardy and bold.

Why does this still matter?
Black real estate developers still make up a very small number of the total developers (8.6% according to Zippia), and access to capital is still the largest problem facing these and other developers who are not white. Healey reveals in detail the many forms of anti-Blackness that came against Soul City from politicians, the press, industry and government administrators. Ultimately, the author implies that if Soul City had been as resourced as the Woodlands, a white-led New City project near Houston that received 4x the investment that Soul City received from HUD, it might have had a chance.

But yeah, I am discouraged and doubtful that federal investment will be the primary vehicle to build on the assets and talents of—and to create wealth for—BIPOC communities in a liberatory way. That doesn’t mean I won’t stop asking for it, but I feel less hopeful overall.

4.5

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned so much not only about Soul City and Floyd McKissick, but about the New Communities Act, and the attempts to complete the projects during the 1970s.

McKissick's political and civil right work which preceded his work to fund and build Soul City in Warren County, NC. His work & the work of those who joined him helped surrounding towns and the county.
p83 The Wilmington, NC, coup of 1894.

p123 McKissick's friend Bob Brown, Nixon's top Black aide on assignment in Rochester, NY to prepare for Nixon's speech there. A month before Hubert Humphrey had been greeted there by hundreds of Black protestors lying in the street. Nixon's speech was held in Rochester Community War Memorial.

p240 Recession's impact: "By late 1974, eight of the thirteen towns approved by HUD were is financial trouble...Gananda, a new town near Rochester, was also out of cash, having blown through $22 million in bonds."

p248 Josephus Daniels, progressive in many areas, was a white supremacist, and endorsed Democrats' campaign of intimidation and violence against Black Republicans in 1898. His newspaper, the News and Observer wrote "Last November it ws only by such a campaign as exhausted every resource of the white men in the state that White Supremacy was secured..."

p255 fwd shows the Catch-22 McKissick was put in by HUD--example couldn't use money for building, just for getting ready to build, so often no tangible offices, homes etc to show progress.

The unremitting assaults by N&O articles which told the story through no context and with omissions. And the racist assaults and blockade of Jesse Helms.

[Lionel Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the late '60s and early '70s, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) created the New Cities Program. The idea was that the government would fund the creation of several communities to help revitalize economically destitute areas. Floyd McKissick a civil rights worker/ lawyer applied for the program to complete his dream of Soul City a city founded by black people with the goal of creating a thriving middle-class community providing all of the amenities of a modern town. While Soul City would be an integrated community, as its title makes clear its goal was to provide an opportunity for black families to escape the squalor of the inner city and the grinding poverty of the rural south. This book is the story of McKissick's ultimately doomed efforts to start the new town of Soul City. One thing that this book highlight is just how hard it is to start a thriving community from scratch. What is amazing is that McKissick got as far along as he did. Going against the federal bureaucracy, a failing economy and the hostility of politicians like Jesse Helms, McKissick's dream was ultimately doomed. This book is an interesting story about what might have been had one man's dream been allowed to come to fruition.

[Ashlyn-Tierra Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

"How audacious was that?" This quote sums up my thinking about the dream of Soul City. Although it was not fully actualized and some may disagree with his politics, the reader can't help but be in awe at the work accomplished by Floyd Mckissick. Soul City was intended to be a place for Black people (and others) to come so they may feel like full citizens and have access to all the promises made by the US, but only felt by some. The most disheartening fact, is that the city that was supposed to symbolize economic self sufficiency is now a center for prison labor production.

I had not known about Soul City, until reading Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019 and that book led me to this one. It is a frustrating story to read, but not one that is shocking. This book seeks to bring forth a piece of history that is long forgotten like what's left of the city itself.

I would say overall the structure of the narrative was easy to follow. I throughly enjoyed how the author laid out the political backdrop and biographies of stakeholders as he told the story. When there are so many moving parts and players it can get confusing, but that doesn't happen here. I would highly recommend it!

[Sharon Purucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Format: I began reading this book as an ebook from my local library, but I had to renew several times. So, I switched to an audiobook, and finished!

Summary: Civil rights leader Floyd McKissick has a vision to create Soul City in rural North Carolina, but faces countless obsticles. He receives funds after tremondous effort, but never enough to complete the project. Most of the setbacks stem from racism because even though McKissick had touted that the new city would be diverse, he also believed in and intended to promote black owned businesses. At a time when new housing developments (Reston, Va., and Columbia, Md.) were being made with government support, Soul City continually fell short due to the location in a rural area which needed countless upgrades to support a new city, and the changing political landscapes.

Likes: This book gives a deeper understanding of the how new cities are built, and the involvement of government funding that is so necessary.

Dislikes: Sadly, I wonder if Soul City would have succeeded if it was located closer to a large city. But, this may be hopeful thinking because racism was such a huge factor.

[Ricardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eye-opening account of an incredible experiment that I knew nothing about. In order to create a fresh start for many black Americans in the 1970's, Floyd McKissick and others sought to found a new city in the heart of North Carolina. What comes out of this richly researched book is how the aspirational intentions of many can be struck down by the maddening clash of ego, finances, corruption and racism. This work also shows the symbiotic relationship between journalism and politicians, and the disasters that can happen as a result.
Some believe that the project, if it achieved it's fullest potential, would have been a beacon of hope for race relations in the US. Instead, it may have been another result of history's long litany of broken promises and chronic neglect towards racial equality.

[Sara Budarz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soul City discusses the attempt in the 1970s to build a utopian town in which racial equality could become a reality. I can't decide whether I really liked this book because it takes place in NC and all of the places I know and love so much (UNC, Durham, the Piedmont) or whether it is just objectively interesting. I suspect the answer is that it is an interesting read for everyone, but especially for those familiar with NC.

Some sections of the book could have been a bit shorter (there are a lot of he said-they said retellings in terms of conversations in Washington and with HUD), but overall it was fascinating to learn about a history I had never heard about and I have to admit that on my next visit to NC, I definitely want to drive out and see what remains of Soul City.

[Jazzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of detailed information about a failed, yet great, project. Part biography, part region-ography, a lot of Soul City-ology.

Unfortunately, in an attempt to stand outside the story the author wrote a book that often seems to be a cold recitation of the facts. Important still, but difficult and somewhat unsatisfying to read for long stretches.

A huge dose of both sides-ism also diminishes this history lesson. Too often the author fails to identify virulent and obvious racism. Too often situations are presented and wrapped up with no mention of racism being the villain of the tale, other than McKissick's quoted words.

Good, but could have been great. Sort of like Soul City itself.