Mac McCloud's Five Points

Book excerpt: 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.