Raymond Thompson Jr. Photography

 High Water - Bottomlands - Lincoln City

The Neuse River flows from the capital of North Carolina, serpentining through tobacco and cotton fields to Eastern Carolina swamps before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. Occasionally, the river overflows with rainwater and reclaims the landscape, paying no attention to the man-made borders. This can only lead to tragedy for vulnerable communities abandoned by institutions meant to protect them.

In 1999, the small town of Kinston, North Carolina suffered a natural disaster that author Jake Bittle says is part of a trend he has coined “the great displacement,”  which will spark the next great migration fleeing the impacts of climate change. In Kinston, this natural disaster caused the relocation of 800 families representing 10 percent of the community. The historic community founded by freed slaves and sharecroppers was called Lincoln City and was situated in the bottomlands in the Neuse’s floodplain that sat several feet below sea level.

Discriminatory housing practices forced people to locate near the river, which made it vulnerable to periodic flooding. In what the federal government called “coordinated climate migration,” the community was bought out home by home and finally razed to the ground.

All that is left is a maze of streets and the curbs marking where a driveway used to be.

This photography project examines what remains in the landscape of Lincoln City today.  The images are created using the Lumen printing and submerged in water until the emulsion dissolves and/or mold forms on the surface.