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This Family Portrait from 1897 Holds a Mystery That No One Has Ever Been Able to Unravel — Until Now
The author CM Washington Rebecca read carefully, her hands trembling slightly.
There are days when the sun feels like an enemy, when the brightness of the world forces me to retreat inside, when I must experience life through windows instead of directly.
But I have learned this truth.
Being seen is not the same as being visible.
My family sees me, not my difference, but my soul.
My community sees me not as strange, but as their daughter, their sister, their neighbor.
I see myself not through others fear or curiosity, but through the love that has surrounded me since my first breath.
That love taught me I belong in this world, even when the world was not built for people like me.
Rebecca sat motionless, reading Clara’s words again and again, understanding that she’d found something precious.
Direct testimony from a woman who shouldn’t have survived, speaking across 109 years.
Armed with Clara’s own voice from 1916, Rebecca intensified her search for records of Clara’s adult life.
If she’d been active in the YW.
CA and writing for their newsletter in her mid20s, there had to be more.
She found it in the Atlanta city directory.
1918, Washington, Clara M.
Music instructor, residence 127 Auburn A music instructor.
Clara had become a teacher.
Rebecca requested employment records from the Atlanta public schools archives.
What arrived astonished her.
Clara Marie Washington had been employed from 1917 to 1949, 32 continuous years, as a music teacher in schools, serving black children throughout Atlanta.
The records showed she taught piano, music theory, vocal training, and directed student choirs.
Rebecca understood the brilliance of this choice.
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