In the fall of 2008, while photographer and Rochester Institute of Technology visiting faculty member Wendel White was researching images associated with historical sites, he came across an object that would profoundly change his work to come. White discovered a preserved lock of Frederick Douglass’ hair in the Rush Rhees Special collections Library at the University of Rochester, driving him to begin Manifest, a comprehensive ongoing body of work documenting the relics of the United States’ brutal history towards Blacks in America.