A young woman, part of the US Job Corps training program, overlooks the Columbia Bar.
Journalist guests of the National Gallery in DC stand looking to the left, with a monumental painting of the Fitch siblings by John Singleton Copley.
A Native American woman at a party poses for a photo with a Native American Elvis Presley impersonator.
A young white man with facial hair and a gay pride necklace stands beside a buck of pride flags in front of an office building decorated with a large photo of protesting flight attendants.
A group of emotion-filled white women dressed for church stand before pews where other women raise their hands in praise.
Two African American men are seen on the front porch of a small, yellow, tin-roofed house by a road. One is dressed for the day, the other wears a bathrobe.
Five women wearing medals and sashes from patriotic organizations stand outdoors in the sun before folding chairs reciting the Pledge of Allegiance; in the background woman says the pledge in a Che Guevara shirt.
Two white couples in their early 20s stand in the evening light on a bluff overlooking a road and campground.
An older white man with long gray hair and a long gray beard shows off an antique rifle while standing before a wall covered with sculptures and images of people.
An African American man in casual clothes cradling his sleepy son sits in an easy chair before a mural of polar bear.
A woman with high-piled hair in a modest, teal suit stands with a red-headed boy in a red shirt in front of a brick wall with a church window.
A youA young white woman with long brown hair with bangs, a stripper backstage, regards the camera and clutches to her bare chest a black bag printed with the face of Elvis Presley.
A middle-aged Native American woman sits on a lawn looking toward the son, as her son and the family dog loll next to her. In the background is a camper, willow trees, and distant brown hills.
And older white woman looks at the camera as she sits at a desk with a U.S. flag and a snowman mug in foreground, in front of a certificate strewn wall also showing portraits of Army men.
A young, fit, unshaven man in a preppy shirt stands before marble steps and columns as he delightedly stares skyward in eclipse glasses.
A young man of color is seen against a blue sky, with the bunting strewn backside of bleachers and a large American flag on the left and green trees at right; his black T-shirt says FAMOUS in a patriotic font.

America By Another Name:

Photos and Stories of the Road and a History that United Us

Equality & Diversity

  • The photographs and writings in my proposed book renew the reader’s understanding of the promises of equality embedded in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution’s Reconstruction Amendments.

  • The reader encounters diverse social classes, religions, gender & sexual identities, and races & ethnicities.

  • My book’s organizing principle is Columbia, a once beloved and now contested patriotic symbol.

The Road & More

  • The reader joins me on my travels—from Maine to Hawaii, from Alaska to Florida—over some 160,000 miles in a DIY camper van for photographing in over 65 places named Columbia.

  • Captions and short essays tell stories of the road, and Columbia-related histories portray the good and the bad of our development (even as perpetrated by my direct ancestors). 

  • These elements combine into an evocative—and necessary—counterforce to divisive social currents.

Columbia=United States

  • Poets, orators, and songwriters forged Columbia into our nation’s poetic nickname and a symbol for the ideals of liberty, union, and progress.

  • The nation’s own liberty goddess, named Lady Columbia, was created in 1775 by African American poet Phillis Wheatley, and “Hail, Columbia” was our go-to national anthem.

  • Columbia is a perfect metaphor for the nation itself: It’s steeped in idealism while also freighted by its roots in Christopher Columbus and European empire building.

In the Borough of Columbia, PA, looking through lace curtains to hills across the Susquehanna, with buildings and the US flag in middle ground.

Details

Looking to verdant distant hills in Columbia County, New York.

Stats

A springtime lake after sunset in Columbia County, Arkansas.
On the way to Texarkana, looking across a shopping mall parking lot toward rainclouds and lightening.