The Inner Passage: Photographs by Virginia McGee Richards

Exhibit Details

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.

The large-scale photographs in this exhibit were selected from 60 images captured by historian and photographer Virginia McGee Richards for her book The Inner Passage: An Untold Story of Black Resistance Along a Southern Waterway (2026), which documents this remarkable landscape and bears witness to the enslaved people who shaped it and traveled through it. 

A reception will be held on Tuesday, September 22, celebrating the exhibit and featuring a conversation between the artist and NHC President and Director Blair LM Kelley.

About the Artist

Virginia McGee Richards is a photographer, historian, and former environmental lawyer whose work explores landscape as a living archive. Born and raised in the Carolinas, she grew up immersed in Southern geographies and rural life—formative experiences that anchor her artistic practice. “Landscapes are like manuscripts,” she notes. “They record, they hold, and they can render histories—even in the absence of documents.” Her work has been published in Smithsonian magazine, the William & Mary Quarterly, the MIT Press Reader, Now Voyager and The Inner Passage; An Untold Story of Black Resistance Along a Southern Waterway (MIT Press, 2026).

Presented in partnership with the Research Triangle Foundation