The Inner Passage
An Untold Story of Black Resistance Along a Southern Waterway
Published on 7. April 2026
Book
Hardback
200 pages
978-0-262-05171-2 (ISBN)
Description
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 The Inner Passage, for over a hundred years, enslaved Black people used these canals constructed for white plantation owners to travel southward to freedom in Spanish Florida. Virginia McGee Richards documents the lost narrative of the Inner Passage through 60 extraordinary photographs, detailed maps, and an essay describing her discovery of this untold history. In an accompanying essay, Imani Perry writes about her own journey on the Inner Passage, putting Black resistance to enslavement and Southern history into an immediate context. James Estrin brings decades of insight about photography and the power of visual storytelling to his affecting foreword. 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.
Reviews / Votes
Included in Publishers Weekly's Spring 2026 Fiction & Nonfiction Preview"A deeply considered photographic and historical exploration of the waterways known as the Inner Passage in the South Carolina Lowcountry...Throughout the book, Richards demonstrates a commitment not only to understanding this history but also to understanding the people and landscapes that continue to carry it into the present. Her photographs and writing move beyond documentation alone, creating a thoughtful meditation on the responsibility of preserving histories that continue to shape contemporary life."
-Lenscratch
"The Inner Passage: An Untold Story of Black Resistance Along a Southern Waterway by Virginia McGee Richards provides a visual history of the Intracoastal Waterway that runs between Massachusetts and East Texas, which enslaved men and women were forced to build but which they also used to escape to freedom in South Florida."
-Publishers Weekly
"They're the kind of photographs and stories that stay with you for a while."
-Hyperallergic
"The Inner Passage is a memorable photography collection with insights into an important region and the people formed by it."
-Foreword Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
ENDORSEMENTS
"Making brilliant use of an old photographic process, Virginia Richards has soulfully summoned a heartrending past. What a vital and astonishing book! Through landscape and portraiture, it speaks, and haunts, and sings."
-Robin Kelsey, author of Photography and the Art of Chance
"Virginia McGee Richards' breathtaking photographs visualize histories of Black resistance and resilience, while transcending time and powerfully reminding us that the past is an indelible part of the present."
-Steven Nelson, coeditor, Black Modernisms in the Transatlantic World
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge (Massachusetts)
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
61 BLACK AND WHITE ILLUS.
Dimensions
Height: 274 mm
Width: 208 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
839 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-05171-2 (9780262051712)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Virginia Richards is an award-winning documentary photographer, historian, and environmental lawyer. Imani Perry is a professor at Harvard University and the author of the National Book Award winning book South to America. James Estrin is a writer and staff photographer at the New York Times.
Content
Contents
Foreword: On the Photographs by James Estrin
Introduction: Along This Way: Living History in Virginia Richards' Lowcountry Photography by Imani Perry
Portfolio of Photographic Plates
Swimming in History at New Cut Canal by Virginia McGee Richards
List of Enslaved and Indentured People Escaping on the Inner Passage
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Foreword: On the Photographs by James Estrin
Introduction: Along This Way: Living History in Virginia Richards' Lowcountry Photography by Imani Perry
Portfolio of Photographic Plates
Swimming in History at New Cut Canal by Virginia McGee Richards
List of Enslaved and Indentured People Escaping on the Inner Passage
Acknowledgments
Bibliography