Mac McCloud's Five Points - by William Wyckoff (Paperback)

About the Book

"This stunning collection of images celebrates the remarkable career of Burnis 'Mac' McCloud, Denver's premiere Black photographer between 1950 and 1980. His remarkable photographs, focused on Denver's Five Points community, captured the ordinary lives of African Americans during a period that witnessed the end of Jim Crow segregation and the beginning of the Civil Rights era. Assembled from more than one hundred thousand negatives that McCloud left behind, this collection introduces his creative work to the world beyond the Mile High City. Author William Wyckoff also tells McCloud's life story, revealing the challenges to and vitality of Denver's Black community. At a time when much of what McCloud photographed is being swept away by gentrification and urban change, this collection of images preserves a time and place important not only for Denver but for all of Black America"--Back cover.

Book Synopsis

This stunning collection of images celebrates the remarkable career of Burnis Mac McCloud, Denver's premiere Black photographer between 1950 and 1980. His remarkable photographs, focused on Denver's Five Points community, captured the ordinary lives of African Americans during a period that witnessed the end of Jim Crow segregation and the beginning of the Civil Rights era.

Assembled from more than one hundred thousand negatives that McCloud left behind, this collection introduces his creative work to the world beyond the Mile High City. Author William Wyckoff also tells McCloud's life story, revealing the challenges to and vitality of Denver's Black community. At a time when much of what McCloud photographed is being swept away by gentrification and urban change, this collection of images preserves a time and place important not only for Denver but for all of Black America.

Review Quotes

William Wyckoff has done a splendid job of exhuming Mac McCloud and his photographs of everyday life in Denver's now-fading Black neighborhood of Five Points.--Thomas J. Noel, author of Colorado: A Historical Atlas

About the Author

William Wyckoff is a professor emeritus of geography in the Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State University. He is the author of several books, including Riding Shotgun with Norman Wallace: Rephotographing the Arizona Landscape (UNM Press).