The 1970s Black Utopian City That Became a Modern Ghost Town

That’s unfortunate. The history of Soul City is worth remembering as the country continues to grapple with the legacy of segregation and slavery. McKissick’s unrealized dream offers a window into the struggle for racial equality and the many forces—social, political, and economic—that continue to stand in the way.

A lawyer by profession, McKissick rose to prominence as the head of the Congress of Racial Equality, one of the foremost civil-rights groups of the 1960s. He was a fiery speaker and a visionary leader, but he had neither the experience nor the resources needed to build a city. And the site he chose was an unlikely location for an urban utopia: 5,000 acres of farmland in one of the poorest parts of the state, with no water or sewer systems, no paved roads, and no electrical grid. It also lay smack in the middle of what one roadside billboard boldly proclaimed “Klan Country.”

Perhaps the biggest obstacle was the idea itself. Although Soul City was meant to be integrated, McKissick made clear that his main goal was to help Black people, especially the poor and the unemployed. For that reason—and because of its name—Soul City was quickly branded an experiment in Black nationalism, a sort of domestic Liberia. This played well in certain circles, but to many who had fought for integration, or at least come to accept it, Soul City seemed like a step backward. As one southern newspaper put it, “How terribly tragic it would be should all civil rights roads cut in the past twenty years lead to Soul City—a Camelot built on racism.”

In reality, McKissick’s dream was about economic equality, not separatism. It is true that he had emerged as a spokesperson for Black Power and that his rhetoric was often inflammatory. “If white America does not respond to peaceful protest,” he wrote in his book Three-Fifths of a Man, “Black People will be forced to work for their liberation through violent revolution.” But he had also spent his entire life challenging racial barriers. He integrated the University of North Carolina Law School in 1951. His children desegregated Durham public schools in 1958. And he led nonviolent protests against segregated buses, lunch counters, dime stores, ice-cream parlors, swimming pools, bathrooms, and water fountains for two decades.

Over the years, however, McKissick became frustrated by the slow pace of change. Like many Black leaders, he realized that marches and demonstrations, lawsuits and legislation, could achieve only so much. For Black people to be truly free, they needed power—economic power. “If a Black man has no bread in his pocket, the solution to his problem is not integration,” McKissick liked to say. “It’s to go get some bread.” That’s why, although McKissick had no desire to exclude white people, his dream was to build a city where Black Americans would call the shots, owning banks and businesses, running the police department and the school system, directing health care and social services.