The Last Utopia: Soul City, Civil Rights and the Unmaking of an American Dream

FAIN: FT-56469-09

Thomas J. Campanella
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC 27599-1350)

The proposed study will document the rise and fall of Soul City, NC, one of the most ambitious planned communities in American history. The brainchild of civil-rights activist Floyd McKissick, Soul City was founded in 1973 on ideals of equality and social justice. Though open to all, Soul City was to be planned, designed and built by African Americans. It would create for blacks opportunities for business enterprise unavailable elsewhere, enabling them to develop economic power and end dependence on the welfare state. The product will be a book that tells the story of Soul City and its demise; that analyzes the project's role as part of a federal effort to solve the 'urban crisis'; and that situates Soul City within the larger story of utopianism and the Civil Rights Movement in America.