by Thomas Healy
He soon found out. McKissick’s initial response was muted. In a statement issued the day of HUD’s announcement, he said only that he was surprised by the decision, given that Soul City was not in default. The next day, his tone changed. Interviewed for a front-page story in the Washington Post, McKissick blamed Soul City’s lack of progress on HUD. “The way this was done, it’s like cutting off a man’s hand and then condemning him because he can’t pick up anything.” Asked whether he was going to accept HUD’s decision, he was defiant. “No, I’m not going to give up on Soul City,” he said. “I’m a fighter. I’ve just got to fight this.”
McKissick’s defiance inspired the rest of the staff. Initially resigned to Soul City’s closure, they decided to fight, too. “It was really bad there for a while, and then we decided we wouldn’t let it die,” said Dot Waller. “We would just continue until we couldn’t continue anymore.”
• 20 •
“Sorrow’s Kitchen”
And so began the last chapter in Soul City’s history—an uphill battle to reverse HUD’s decision and keep McKissick’s dream alive. Known as the Save Soul City Campaign, it was coordinated by the North Carolina Black Leadership Caucus and supported by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Over the next few months, the campaign generated a flurry of activity, issuing reports and press releases, circulating a petition addressed to President Carter, and hosting a picnic at Soul City to raise money for the effort. The response was encouraging. More than fifteen hundred people from thirty states signed the petition, while a crowd of a hundred and fifty Black leaders trekked to Soul City for a day of swimming, tennis, and fishing.
Those who could not attend in person wrote to offer their support. In the months after HUD’s decision, McKissick received hundreds of letters from ministers, journalists, educators, and activists. Rabbi William Feyer of Woodbridge, Virginia, noted that he was a CORE veteran who had attended the 1963 March on Washington and served as a poll watcher in Mississippi. “I now read that Soul City is being threatened with a cut-off of federal support,” he wrote. “What can I do to help?” Malvin Russell Goode, a television reporter with the National Black Network in New York, explained that he had written to his local congressman and was ready to do whatever he could to “stem this tide.” Some writers encouraged McKissick to keep the faith, while others offered ideas for the property. “Hang onto all the land: start an organic vegetable farm,” advised Katherine Heaton Daye of Lexington, Kentucky. “There is going to be a greater market for food locally produced.”
Numerous supporters also wrote to HUD and other federal officials on Soul City’s behalf. One of them was Walter Sorg, who appealed directly to Helms. Sorg made clear that he had not initially been a fan of the new communities program, which he thought an unwise interference with market forces. But once the government invested millions of dollars in the program, he believed, it should support those towns that had a chance to succeed, including Soul City. “I personally have no doubts concerning the future value of the property known as Soul City,” he told Helms. “Its strategic location in a state which is exploding industrially ordains that it will ultimately be a winner.”
Sorg also expressed his views about why Soul City had struggled: “Industry was afraid to come in.” And why was industry afraid? First: “Skepticism that the feds would not back their bet and thus leave them high and dry if they (the feds) pulled the plug.” And second: “Uncertainty concerning John Q. Public’s reaction to a company which so closely identified itself with a ‘black operation.’” Industry’s skepticism about the government’s commitment had been proven right, Sorg argued. As for concerns about the public’s reaction, he wasn’t so sure. “It is my belief that a company with enough guts to take the plunge would have derived a substantial plus for itself, as well as making a statement on behalf of the corporate community.”
“I am the last to find fault with your senatorial record,” Sorg concluded. “You have been a consistent, articulate spokesman for a return to a set of principles which could result in getting Big Brother off our backs. For this you have my thanks and appreciation. But on the issue of Floyd McKissick and Soul City, I just can’t support your logic.”
Many people did, though. In a letter to the N&O, Eric Chandler of Raleigh argued that Soul City was doomed from the start because it perverted the normal process of urban development. Instead of building a town where people had already struck gold, he asserted, McKissick had built his town first in the hope that gold might one day be discovered there. And the “liberal social experimenters” in Washington had funded the whole thing. “The arrogance with which they spend the money forcibly taken from us is equalled only by their profound, almost unfathomable ignorance and by the insincerity of the mea culpas which follow the collapse of each and every one of their untenable schemes,” Chandler wrote.
Two days later, Helms echoed that argument on the floor of the Senate. Troubled by news that McKissick was mounting a campaign to reverse HUD’s decision, Helms introduced a provision forbidding the agency from providing additional money to Soul City. Noting that this was the eighth government-sponsored new town to go under, Helms argued that the entire program was a silly and wasteful enterprise. “Soul City and the other failures are dismissed by some observers as worthwhile dreams that simply never materialized,” he declared. “It is high time, however, that the Congress of the United States realize that the hard-pressed American taxpayers are sick and tired of paying for foolish dreams.” The last time Helms had introduced legislation targeting Soul City, Edward Brooke rose to its defense. But Brooke was no longer in the Senate. During his 1978 reelection campaign, it came out that he had lied about his finances during a bitter divorce from his wife of thirty-one years. That revelation led to a criminal investigation overseen by a young Massachusetts prosecutor named John Kerry. Although no charges were filed, Brooke’s reputation was badly damaged, and he lost to Democrat Paul Tsongas. Thus, Helms’s attack on Soul City went unchallenged, and the Senate approved his proposal by a voice vote.
Helms was not finished. In an interview with the News & Observer the same day, he returned to his earlier claims that Soul City was a fraud designed to line its developer’s pockets. Asked whether he would support a settlement between HUD and McKissick, he responded skeptically. “If it’s going to further enrich anybody down there, we’ll have to see about that,” he said. “I think McKissick and his family have profited enough from this venture.”
Carey was livid. In a memo to McKissick, he declared that Helms’s statements were “so racist, vindictive, irresponsible and untrue as to be beyond belief or comprehension.” Given the personal nature of the attacks, he argued, McKissick should respond forcefully and should seek support from his allies in Congress. McKissick did just that. In a telegram to members of the Congressional Black Caucus, he described Helms’s provision as “yet another unwarranted vindictive and personal attack upon me and the partners of the Soul City Company.” Pointing out that Soul City was not currently in default, he urged the caucus to reject the provision when it came before the House. “The Senator is using his high office to deny me and other Black Americans due process, equal protection of laws and the right to be a successful entrepreneur in the free enterprise system.”
* * *
AT THE SAME time McKissick was fending off Helms’s attacks in Congress, he was attempting to negotiate with HUD. In July, he flew to Washington for discussions with the staff of the New Communities Administration. When he left, he was optimistic the two sides could reach a deal to keep Soul City alive. But the next day, HUD announced it was terminating several regional projects in Warren County, canceling all construction contracts for Soul City, and withdrawing nearly $1 million it had pledged for the new sewage treatment plant.
Believing he had been betrayed, McKissick turned to the only recourse left. On August 17, he filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, DC, alleging that HUD had breached its contract with Soul City by fail
ing to provide adequate support, thwarting his efforts to build needed infrastructure, and refusing to release the final $4 million in bonds. The allegations were plausible enough that the court issued a temporary restraining order in McKissick’s favor. The order blocked HUD from foreclosing on the property, terminating existing grants, or taking any steps that would deny essential services to the residents of Soul City or push the project into default.
Over the next few months, McKissick battled on, lobbying his supporters in Washington and preparing for his trial against HUD. But privately he wondered whether it was all futile—the lawsuit, Soul City, the civil rights movement itself. Responding to a letter from an old friend named David Stith (no relation to Pat Stith), he sounded weary. “Tell me, David. Do you think we have made very much progress? Do you think times have changed any? Sometimes I think it is only the personalities that change and nothing else.”
While McKissick sought comfort from one old friend, he cut ties with another. Relations between him and Carey had been tense since the car accident in March. Some family members thought Carey, who had been in charge while McKissick was in the hospital, had not done enough to make a favorable impression on the task force, and they blamed him for the shutdown. McKissick had not shared that view with Carey, but he now made his displeasure known. On July 12, he sent Carey a notice of termination, effective in two weeks. Typed on company stationery and signed by McKissick, the letter was cold and impersonal. It conveyed regret at having to let Carey go, but noted that “the financial situation is out of our hands.” It also thanked Carey for “a very good performance during your time here,” and expressed confidence that he would find work elsewhere. “The Company approves your taking all the time off required during this interim to look for another job,” the letter concluded. “If we can be of any assistance, please feel free to call.”
Carey was not surprised by the decision. He knew McKissick could no longer afford to pay him, could no longer justify his presence on staff. Still, he was hurt that McKissick didn’t break the news in person. They had been friends for nearly twenty years, ever since McKissick had bailed him out of jail during the sit-ins of 1960. They had fought one battle after another together, facing angry crowds and skeptical allies. And now their relationship was ending with a form letter. “I knew that Floyd could no longer have me on staff. He couldn’t pay me. I knew that,” Carey said later. “But it would have been nice if he’d walked in and been cordial.”
As it turned out, that letter was not the worst part of the experience. Sometime later, McKissick sent Carey another letter, this one far more personal and hurtful. Carey did not save the second letter, and apart from calling it “nasty” and a “tirade” he is reluctant to describe it in detail. “My feelings were so mixed at that time (as were Floyd’s) that I think it would be unreasonable to try to recreate much about the missing letter,” he told me in an email. “Clearly he was angry, but it was then (and now) difficult to take his charges seriously. As I said earlier, his world and dreams were falling apart and he was having difficulty thinking analytically. In my response, as I recall, I did not answer him point by point but did say that I disagreed with the thrust of his letter.”
In any event, Carey had little time to dwell on the pain. With five kids to support and his wife in her second year at Duke’s law school, he had a more pressing problem: putting food on the table. He and Karen had built a house in Soul City, but there were no jobs for someone with his qualifications in Warren County. So he decided to start his own consulting company, advising on real estate developments. Carey spent the next year working on a project in Trinidad and Tobago while Karen finished law school. When she graduated, in 1981, she took a job at a law firm in Raleigh, and the couple sold their house to Charles Worth, a former Soul City staffer who had become the Warren County manager.
Carey had little contact with McKissick during his last two years in Soul City. Looking back later, he said he wasn’t angry at his old friend. He simply felt that chapter of his life was over.
“I wasn’t exactly happy, but I’m not one to get bitter,” he said. “I saw it for what it was. I think we all just realized that that dream had ended and that we had to go on with our lives somehow.”
* * *
THE LAST MONTHS of Soul City were not pretty. Despite his initial victory in court, McKissick held a losing hand. With his access to funds cut off, he lacked the resources for a protracted legal battle. HUD’s lawyers knew as much and signaled their intention to litigate until McKissick ran out of money. Seeing the writing on the wall, he indicated a willingness to talk, and the two sides sat down to negotiate a settlement.
Yet even as he negotiated with HUD, McKissick continued his efforts to attract industry. And in January 1980, he finally caught a break. Perdue Foods agreed to buy five hundred acres in the Warren Industrial Park for a chicken hatchery and processing plant that would employ 1,200 people. Touting the deal as the spark that would finally lift Soul City off the ground, McKissick pleaded with HUD to reconsider its decision. But HUD had no interest in continuing to support Soul City, or any other new town. It was trying desperately to get out of the new-town business.
On May 16, the parties agreed to terms. McKissick would drop his lawsuit so that HUD could foreclose on the property. In exchange, the government would let McKissick and his partners keep eighty-eight acres of land, including the mobile home park and Soul Tech I, both of which were heavily mortgaged. HUD also agreed to pay the Soul City Company $167,000 to help satisfy outstanding debts. As for current residents, they would be permitted to stay in their homes, with management of the community reverting to a private homeowners’ association.
The settlement left McKissick with little to show for eleven years of hard work and a personal investment of more than a half million dollars. “I was way out there on a limb,” he told an interviewer later. “Everything that I owned was in hock one way or the other.” Roy Gast, HUD’s project manager for Soul City, backed up that assertion. “He was certainly taking it on the chin,” Gast said. “A lot of developers in the same situation didn’t put up the kind of money he put up, nor expose themselves to the risks he exposed himself to on behalf of the project. It was a percentage of what his worth was, and it was 100 percent. You can’t ask for more than that.”
Yet the N&O viewed the settlement as one more example of McKissick’s ability to fleece the government for personal gain. In an editorial titled “No Taps for McKissick,” it maintained that he had once again displayed “an uncanny knack for gaining advantage from the federal government.” After all the money the government had lost on Soul City, the paper stated, the settlement was “not a bad ending for McKissick, whose project never came close to the goals he himself set and that formed the basis for federal sponsorship.” The paper applauded HUD for finally ending its involvement with Soul City. But it showed little sympathy for McKissick, arguing that the project benefited him far more than the general public. “The government’s settlement with McKissick seems so handsome,” it concluded, “that there need be no taps or tears for the impresario of Soul City.”
With the settlement finalized, McKissick began the painful process of closing up shop. There was no one left on staff, so he did most of the work himself, answering mail, taking out the garbage, cleaning up the office. Recalling this period later, he said he had never worked harder in his life. “I was the janitor, the bell-hop man, the trash-can man.” And yet, unlike every other job he had held, there was no satisfaction in the work because it was designed to destroy, not create. “Taking something down is more difficult than beginning something,” he observed. “Here you know that you aren’t going to get paid anymore. You’ve got all your obligations and you lost twelve years of your life. And now it all goes down the drain.”
Jane Groom felt the same. She spent long hours walking around the property “disgusted, sad, and angry.” She tried to stay positive. When she recalled a line from Zora Neale Hurston—“I have been in Sor
row’s kitchen and licked out all the pots”—she resisted the urge to give in to self-pity. But she couldn’t escape the feeling that a verdict had been rendered and that the foreclosure of Soul City was like a death sentence. “In my head,” she wrote, “it seemed the gavel had been slammed down, vibrating onto a cold, steel table.”
* * *
ON JANUARY 29, 1981, Roy Gast climbed the steps of the Warren County Courthouse. It had been almost twelve years since McKissick mounted the same steps to take title to the Circle P Ranch. Now the ranch and other property he had acquired was on the auction block as part of a foreclosure sale, and Gast had come to bid on the government’s behalf. He had been authorized to make an initial offer of $1.5 million and to increase it “in his sound discretion” up to $11.5 million. But there was no need to go beyond his opening bid. Aside from a small group of reporters, the courthouse steps were empty. And when the trustee opened the auction, Gast was the only bidder. His offer of $1.5 million was quickly accepted, and the federal government officially became the owner of Soul City.
Except Soul City no longer existed. Not long after the foreclosure sale, the Warren County Board of Commissioners requested that the state department of transportation remove the signs on I-85 and Route 1 that marked the exits for Soul City. The commissioners had once embraced Soul City, believing that McKissick’s dream would revive the county’s fortunes and help it reclaim some measure of its past glory. Now they were taking the first step in a process that would eventually wipe Soul City off the face of the map. As board chairman Walter J. Harris explained after some residents objected, “We felt there was no such place. It was just a name put on a tract of land.”