The “Sugar Sack Stories” share imagined moments in sharecroppers’ lives on a Louisiana sugar plantation. A purchase of vintage sugar sacks prompted me to research American sugar plantations during Reconstruction. I learned the process of growing cane and turning its juice into sugar fostered a newly-freed labor pool that was well organized and paid much more than their cotton sharecropping peers.

I imagined life in those tight-knit communities of newly empowered earners, and then used the sacks as backdrops for my stories. Some images are inspired by Library of Congress photos.