The Inner Passage - An Untold Story of Black Resistance Along a Southern Waterway

A deeply moving photographic and narrative history of a southern waterway that the enslaved were forced to build for mercantile shipping--but which they used to escape slavery. The Intracoastal Waterway runs 3000 miles along the Eastern Seaboard between Massachusetts and Brownsville, Texas. The earliest canals on the Waterway were constructed by enslaved people living in the Charles Town colony in present-day South Carolina in the early 1700s. In a paradox of history that unfolds in Richards’ images, made with a wet plate collodion process, using the water of the fields and riverbanks of the Lowcountry, tell of resilience and loss along this ancient waterway. They include landscapes altered by slavery as well as portraits of Lowcountry descendants, each a window into a forgotten corner of Southern history, as well as centuries-old “Witness Trees,” live oaks that have survived centuries of planting seasons, river baptism, torture, prayers, war, poverty, massacres, and lynchings. Together, these words and images and artifacts offer a powerful living map of history.

Product details

• Authors: James Estrin, Imani Perry, Virginia Mcgee Richa
• Assisted by: James Estrin (Foreword), Perry Imani (Introduction)
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 07.04.2026
• EAN: 9780262051712
• ISBN: 978-0-262-05171-2
• No. of pages: 200
• Subjects: Places & peoples: general & pictorial works, Photography & photographs, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Slavery, PHOTOGRAPHY / History, History of art / art & design styles, History of Art, Slavery & abolition of slavery, PHOTOGRAPHY / Subjects & Themes / Regional, Photography and photographs, Places and peoples: general and pictorial works, Slavery, enslaved persons and abolition of slavery