Rebecca stared at the image with new understanding.

So, she wasn’t a white child in a black family.

She was their biological daughter with a genetic condition.

Exactly.

And that makes this photograph historically extraordinary.

Dr.

Mitchell’s voice carried intensity.

Now, do you understand what it meant for a black family in 1897 Georgia to have a child with albinism and raise her openly? He pulled up research files.

People with albinism, especially black children with albinism in the Jim Crow South, faced horrific discrimination.

They were called ghost children, cursed, unnatural.

Many communities believed they were supernatural beings or evidence of sin.

Families typically hid these children completely, or worse.

Worse, Rebecca asked quietly.

Abandonment, institutionalization, in some cases, infanticide.

Dr.

Mitchell’s expression was grim.

There are documented cases of black children with albinism being killed by their own communities out of superstition and fear.

He turned back to the photograph.

Continued on the next page