photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

The Watkins Museum of History is pictured Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022.

The Watkins Museum of History announced it will be hosting a traveling exhibition later this spring that features photography documenting sites along the Underground Railroad, with a supplemental exhibit detailing Kansas’s history with the network.

The museum announced in a press release Thursday morning the exhibit, titled Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad, will be on view starting on April 7. The exhibit was organized by ExhibitsUSA, a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance.

The exhibition features photographs and narratives that together tell the history of the Underground Railroad. The exhibition features much of the work from photographer and author Jeanine Michna-Bales, who spent over a decade “researching fugitive enslaved people and the ways they escaped to freedom,” according to the release.

Although the clandestine paths of the Underground Railroad covered “countless square miles,” the path that Michna-Bales documents encompassed around 2,000 miles and is based on actual sites, cities and places that “freedom-seekers passed through on their journey,” according to the release.

photo by: Contributed

“Decision to Leave,” Magnolia Plantation on the Cane River, Louisiana, 2013, Digital C-print, 32 inches x 43 inches, courtesy the artist. This photograph is one of the many of sites of the Underground Railroad that will be on display at the Watkins Museum from April 7 to May 25 as part of the traveling exhibition “Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad.”

Andrew Stockmann, the Watkins Museum’s curator of exhibitions, said in a statement the museum is proud to share the “compelling photographs with the community. He noted that during the country’s 250th anniversary, it is “doubly important that organizations like the Watkins tell a complete picture of American history.”

Stockmann said that Michna-Bales’ work also allows the museum to showcase the “rich Underground Railroad history” in the Lawrence area. Along with the main exhibition, the museum will house a supplemental exhibition titled “The Underground Railroad in Our Community.” That exhibition will highlight four locations in Douglas and Shawnee counties with ties to the Underground Railroad, including Grover Barn, Miller House, Constitution Hall in Topeka, and a privately-owned property near Willow Springs.

Through Darkness to Light will be on display at the Watkins Museum, 1047 Massachusetts St., from April 7 to May 25. The supplemental museum highlighting the local sites with ties to the Underground Railroad will be on display until May 30.

The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission to the museum and this special exhibition is free.