Soul City by Thomas Healy

Author:Thomas Healy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

The high point of the celebration was the keynote address by the state’s new governor, James Holshouser. His predecessor, Bob Scott, had always been ambivalent about Soul City, writing in his diary that it had only a “50 percent chance” of success. Holshouser was different. Just thirty-eight years old, with an earnest face and a boyish haircut, he was the state’s youngest governor since the Civil War. He was also the first Republican elected to the office in the twentieth century. Both distinctions gave him an aura of destiny, and he embraced Soul City with a fervor and idealism few other officials displayed. Arriving at the Circle P Ranch by helicopter, he trekked across the freshly mown fields with an entourage of aides and state troopers, then took the stage to deliver a speech that sounded as though it could have been written by John F. Kennedy.

“There are those who say there is nothing new under the sun, that there are no new worlds left for man to conquer on this planet,” he began. “They should be here today.” Soul City would be the first fully planned and freestanding new town in the United States, he noted. It would be a landmark in the history of urban planning, a milestone in the nation’s quest for better communities. But Soul City was more than just a real estate development. It was “a tribute to man’s ability to dream new dreams and to put those dreams to work.” Like Columbus, like the Wright Brothers, like the astronauts who had recently landed on the moon, Floyd McKissick possessed a spirit that was rare and invaluable, Holshouser said. “It is a spirit of pioneerism, the same sort of spirit that has inspired man to open up frontiers, to go where man has never gone, to do what man has never done.”

Of course, anyone could dream, Holshouser conceded. What set McKissick apart was the drive and determination with which he had pursued his dream. So deep was his passion, so complete his commitment, so contagious his enthusiasm that he had made converts of people who had once dismissed Soul City as a lark. Now, remarkably, McKissick had won the support of the federal government, the state of North Carolina, and all the local officials seated on the dais behind him. “Slowly but surely, those who doubted Soul City have become believers.”

McKissick (right) and Governor Holshouser (center) on their way to the groundbreaking celebration.

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