The Photographer Who Reimagined the Darkness of the Underground Railroad

When photographer Dawoud Bey stood with his camera, overlooking the waters of Lake Erie in northeastern Ohio, he felt something unexpected. The acclaimed artist had been working on a project to reimagine the history of the Underground Railroad through shooting the imaginary point of view of a fugitive enslaved person moving through the landscape. Due to the inherent secret nature of the Underground Railroad, most of its “stations,” or safehouses, were a mystery. Those unknowns provided Bey with a certain creative openness. On the shore of Lake Erie, he saw…

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