The Inner Passage

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.

With gorgeously rich tritone photographs and a hard-bound cover with tip-in, perfect for fine art or history lovers.

Some of the earliest canals in colonial America, referred to as the Inner Passage, were constructed by enslaved people living in the Lowcountry of South Carolina in the early 1700s. In a paradox of history, for over a hundred years enslaved Black people used these canals, constructed for white plantation owners, to travel southward to freedom in Spanish Florida.

In this book, Virginia McGee Richards documents the lost narrative of the Inner Passage through 60 extraordinary photographs of landscapes altered by slavery and portraits of Lowcountry descendants, along with 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. Together, these words and images offer a powerful living map of history.Included in Publishers Weekly's Spring 2026 Fiction & Nonfiction Preview

"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

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 WorldVirginia Richards is an award-winning documentary photographer, historian, and environmental lawyer.