Soul City, North Carolina

Soul City, North Carolina is a planned new town first proposed in 1969 by Floyd McKissick, a civil rights leader and director of the Congress of Racial Equality. Funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, (HUD) as one of thirteen model city projects, it was located on 5000 acres in Warren County near Manson. The city was to be contain three villages housing 18,000 people by 1989. It was hoped to be self-contained, so that residents could work, receive health care, schooling, and religion in town. Soul City was the first new town organized by African-American businesses.

In 1972, the city received a grant of $14 million from HUD on the hope that industry would move to the planned community. Yet by 1975, the city had few homes and only one industrial building "Soul Tech 1".

The city failed to reach its initial ambitions. Lawsuits and investigations into the use of funds by the Soul City Company, the city's developers resulted in foreclosure in 1979. In 1980, there were 35 housing units, a clinic, tennis court, pool. About 150 people were employed in the city.

Since that time, the city has grown somewhat, but not to the size originally planned, in large part due to the Warren Correction Institute adjacent to town.

Representative Eva Clayton worked in Soul City before being elected to Congress.