Road Through Midnight

Road through Midnight: A Civil Rights Memorial, by Jessica Ingram, is a deeply researched body of work that brings together photographs, oral histories, newspapers, FBI files, and other ephemera to tell the stories of individuals who were victims of racial violence in the American South. Released at a time of ongoing civil unrest, Ingram’s book is a stark reminder of America’s long racist history and an indication that what is happening today is not so different from the past. The photographs depict seemingly ordinary spaces—neighborhood sidewalks, motels, unmarked dirt roads—but, in the manner of Joel Sterneld’s On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam (Chronicle Books, 1996), depict places where heinous crimes against Black Americans took place. Ingram “looks to uncover and reveal the history of violence while searching to relearn histories that are buried and obscured,” notes Meiselas. No plaques or monuments mark these spaces; instead, Ingram “brings greater visibility to what is left for us to revisit and learn.”