Mac McCloud's Five Points: Photographing Black Denver, 1938–1975

by William Wyckoff

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.

152 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2023

About the author

I was born and raised in sunny Southern California and explored much of the Golden State as I grew up there in the 1960s and 1970s. After living back East and attending graduate school (M.A. and Ph.D. in Geography) at Syracuse University in Upstate New York (1977-1982), I returned west in 1986 to become a college professor at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT. Since then, I have taught classes in World Regional Geography, Cultural Geography, Geography of the United States, and Geography of the American West in the Department of Earth Sciences.

I have managed to explore many corners of the West, eventually visiting every county in the 11 western states. Books on the West's mountains (THE MOUNTAINOUS WEST: Explorations in Historical Geography), Colorado's landscape (CREATING COLORADO: The Making of a Western American Landscape, 1860-1940), and Montana (ON THE ROAD AGAIN: Montana's Changing Landscape) were great preparation for completing my most recent book entitled HOW TO READ THE AMERICAN WEST: A Field Guide (University of Washington Press, 2014).

The Field Guide encourages people to explore the West's contemporary landscapes (both rural and urban) and to appreciate all the ways in which environment, history, and culture mingle in this amazing setting!