Soul City: Oakland, U.S.A.

Uncovered after 50 years, an absorbing and illuminating photographic archive of Black West Oakland in the 1970s.

"An invaluable window into urban Black America." --Kirkus (starred review)

In 1974 Ken Light, a young underground press photographer recently arrived in California, was encouraged by residents of West Oakland to document daily life in the neighborhood. A white activist building relationships in an eminent Black community, Light was invited into homes and churches, flagged down on the street for impromptu portraits. The resulting images, taken over two years, ended up unpublished and nearly forgotten for half a century. Now made public for the first time in Soul City, they form a stunning and historically important archive of Black urban life in a major American city in the 1970s. These photographs reveal the deep pride running through West Oakland, despite the formidable attempts of local governments and agencies to tear the neighborhood apart. Soul City presents the everyday experiences and emotions of West Oaklanders: hard work, love, determination, resistance, humor, delight. Including over 120 images, and featuring a stirring foreword by celebrated author and longtime Oakland resident Ishmael Reed, Soul City is a deeply absorbing and enlightening contribution to Black history.

Ken Light has worked as a documentary photographer and filmmaker for over fifty years, focusing on social issues facing America. His books include Course of the Empire, What's Going On? 1969-1974, Valley of Shadows and Dreams, Witness in Our Time, and Picturing Resistance. His work has been presented in over 250 exhibitions worldwide, and he is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts photographers' fellowships, a National Endowment for the Arts survey grant, and the Dorothea Lange Fellowship. Light is the Reva and David Logan Professor of Photojournalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Visit his website at kenlight.com.

Ishmael Reed is the author of numerous books including Mumbo Jumbo, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, and Blues City: A Walk in Oakland. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has lived in Oakland since 1979.