DALLAS, TX.- From a cotton plantation just south of Natchitoches, Louisiana, all the way north to Canada, Jeanine Michna-Bales has created a photographic journey of a slave's long road to freedom, circa 1840.

Under the cover of darkness, an estimated 100,000 slaves traveled north to freedom in the decades prior to the Civil War. They had little knowledge of the trails that lead to their liberty. To find north was to look for moss growing on the north side of trees or by observing the North Star located by the Big Dipper.

Michna-Bales takes you on a dark lit passage through demanding terrains and ominous river crossings in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, and finally Ontario, Canada. The threatening rivers crossed included the Mississippi, Tennessee and the Ohio River (The River Jordan).

Michna-Bales decade long project uncovered roughly 1,400 miles, revealing actual sites, cities and places that freedom-seekers passed through. Homes of Abolitionists William Beard, Joshua Eliason Jr., and Reverend Guy Beckley gave refuge, and are included in her photographic essay.

The photographs offer an eerie, visceral journey that immerses you in the night's grasp. The images illustrate the daunting task of traveling roughly 20 miles each night.

Jeanine Michna-Bales latest projects have been researching and photographing long-forgotten nuclear fallout shelters and invisible epicenters of environmental turmoil from fracking. She recently won the PhotoNola Portfolio Review Prize in 2015, which resulted in a solo exhibition in New Orleans this fall. She was awarded the 2016 Documentarian of the American South Collection Award from the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University. Her photographs have been published in many publications including Harper's, Transition, Spot and Geo Histoire. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Center for Documentary Arts at Duke University.

In conjunction with Jeanine Michna-Bales' show reflecting on the history of the Underground Railroad, PDNB Gallery has organized a group exhibition of photographs of the South spanning many decades.

True South includes powerful images of the people and landscape of the South, from the Deep South to Texas. Several photographer's represented in this exhibition are part of PDNB Gallery's artist stable. A few artists are new to the gallery, including Brandon Thibodeaux (b. 1981) and Ferne Koch (1913 – 2001). Thibodeaux's photographs of the Mississippi Delta are part of the show and will be included in his upcoming book, When Morning Comes.

Ferne Koch's endearing images from Daleville, Alabama in 1950-1951 were taken while her husband was stationed there during the Korean War. She made friends with the townspeople, photographing them in the tradition of Walker Evans.

True South includes portraits of people from Appalachia, prisoners in Huntsville prison, surreal Southern manors of Louisiana, Juke Joints in Mississippi, and 3rd Ward neighbors in Houston, Texas.

Artists included: Keith Carter, William Greiner, Ferne Koch, Earlie Hudnall, Jr., Clarence John Laughlin, Danny Lyons, Birney Imes, Brandon Thibodeaux, Jack Delano, Shelby Lee Adams, Paul Greenberg, Peter Brown, Jack Ridley, William Christenberry.