Rebecca’s pulse quickened. Auburn Avenue, in Atlanta in 1897, was the center of Black economic success, the street where Black-owned businesses thrived despite the increasing brutality of Jim Crow laws. If the Washingtons owned a tailoring business there, city records might identify them.
She spent the next week immersed in Atlanta archives: business directories, tax records, property deeds, and commercial licenses. Finally, she found it. Thomas Washington, proprietor, Washington and Sons Fine Tailoring, 127 Auburn Avenue, established 1889.
Cross-referencing with census records, she assembled the family structure. Thomas Washington, born 1855. Wife Ruth, born 1858. 4 children listed in the 1900 federal census: David, age 16; Samuel, age 13; Grace, age 11; and Clara, age 9. Clara, born approximately 1891, would have been about 6 or 7 in a photograph taken in 1897.
The position matched. The youngest child was likely Clara Washington. But that did not answer the central question. Why did Clara Washington, daughter of 2 Black parents and sister to 3 Black siblings, appear white in the photograph?
Rebecca began building Clara Washington’s life story from fragmentary records, searching for any clue that might explain the mystery.
Atlanta city directories showed the family’s stability and success. Thomas Washington’s tailoring business appeared in every directory from 1889 through 1904, with advertisements describing fine custom garments for distinguished gentlemen and, later, ladies’ and children’s specialty tailoring. Church records from Big Bethel AME Church, 1 of Atlanta’s oldest and most prominent Black congregations, listed the entire Washington family as members.
Clara’s baptism record, dated April 1892, confirmed her birth: Clara Marie Washington, daughter of Thomas and Ruth Washington, born February 14, 1891. The 1900 census showed the family living in a purchased home on Bell Street just off Auburn Avenue, a substantial 2-story residence valued at $2,800, an impressive sum for a Black family in that era.
But nowhere in these routine records was there any explanation for Clara’s appearance.
Rebecca expanded her search into medical and institutional records, looking for any mention of unusual children, genetic conditions, or families confronting medical anomalies. What she found was disturbing.
In the Georgia State Archives, she discovered reports from the state sanitarium and from various county poorhouses from the 1890s. Several entries referenced “abnormal negro children” who had been surrendered by families or removed by authorities, children with physical differences, disabilities, or appearances that deviated from expectations. One entry from 1896 made Rebecca’s stomach turn: female child, approximately 4 years, negro parents, unusual pigmentation, surrendered to institution by family, county unknown.
