The Progressive Pulse: “If you missed Thursday’s fascinating and informative discussion of the new book, Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia that featured the author, Seton Hall University law professor Thomas Healy, and the son of the man behind the Soul City experiment, former North Carolina state senator and current state utilities commissioner Floyd McKissick, Jr., don’t despair.
The Zoom recording of the entire 75 minute conversation, including comments from Floyd’s sister, Prof. Charmaine McKissick-Melton, and questions from the audience, can be viewed by clicking here.”
Book Description:
“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.”