America By Another Name restores the reader’s understanding of the promise of equality embedded in the Declaration of Independence.

My photographs emphatically gather into one volume diverse regions, social classes, religions, gender and sexual identities, and races and ethnicities, all as found in over 65 places named for a once beloved, now contested, patriotic symbol: Columbia.

Included writings tell stories of the road, and show that as used by poets, songwriters, and orators, Columbia was an alternate name for the United States. It is a perfect metaphor for the country itself: while steeped in idealism, it is also heavily freighted by its roots in the Columbus name and the racialized enslavement and murderous theft that accompanied European American empire building

Academic and media personality Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has agreed to write a blurb.

And while considering that my white ancestors from Columbia, TN had enslaved the parents of African American hair care magnate Madam C.J. Walker, her biographer and great-great granddaughter, journalist and cultural historian A'Lelia Bundles, will write the book's afterword.

You may download an open-access copy of the book proposal here.