In 1884, a portrait was taken of a young African-American girl in Athens, Georgia. She was perhaps nine or ten years old, dressed in her finest clothes, a dark pressed dress with a white collar, her hair braided and tied with a ribbon. Her expression was unusual for the era. Instead of the rigid solemnity typical of formal photographs, her eyes held something fiercer, a quiet defiance that seemed beyond her years.
That tintype lay hidden for over a century, wrapped in archival tissue and delivered to the Atlanta Historical Preservation Society on a humid September morning. Dr. Jennifer Cole, the lead conservator, had examined thousands of nineteenth-century photographs. But this one demanded her attention.
It had been found during a church renovation in Athens, hidden inside a wall cavity alongside documents from the 1880s. As Jennifer studied the image under her examination lamp, she noticed the girl was holding a book. Such props were common in formal portraits, but this one seemed intentional, significant. Using reflectance transformation imaging, a technique that captures surface texture through multiple light angles, she revealed an inscription on the leather cover.
It read: “To my dearest friend Clara, may these words open all the doors they tried to close with eternal E. M. 1884. ”
The message was deeply personal, speaking of closed doors and friendship.
It confirmed the girl’s name as Clara and hinted at obstacles society had placed before her. Jennifer contacted Dr. Raymond Foster, a historian at the University of Georgia specializing in African-American history. When she described the inscription, his response was immediate.
In 1884 Georgia, a friendship between a white child and a black child was increasingly forbidden as Jim Crow laws took hold. If the mysterious E. M. had been teaching Clara to read, that was even more threatening to a society determined to reestablish white supremacy.
Their investigation began with Athens city records, but documentation of Black families from that period was notoriously incomplete. They turned to church records, often the most reliable source for Black communities. Meanwhile, Jennifer examined the tintype for photographer’s marks. A partially visible stamp revealed the studio: Watkins Studio, operated by Samuel Watkins from 1882 to 1889.
Watkins was a controversial figure who photographed both white and Black clients, a practice a local newspaper editorial had criticized for undermining proper social distinctions. A descendant of Watkins had donated his business logbooks to the University of Georgia. On a rainy October morning, Jennifer and Raymond found the entry within an hour: August 12th, 1884. Portrait, young girl, Clara, no surname, payment one dollar fifty, collected.
The breakthrough came from an elderly woman named Dorothy Washington, the unofficial historian for one of Athens’ oldest Black churches. Her grandmother had told stories about a girl named Clara who worked at the Ashford School, a private academy for white children, cleaning classrooms and assisting with tasks. Clara could read better than most adults, her grandmother said, though she’d never been formally educated. The church people were proud but scared for her.
Reading was power, and power was dangerous for a Black child. Charles Ashford, who established the academy in 1878, had moved to Athens from Massachusetts. He had briefly taught at a school for free people in South Carolina, and his letters marked him as a supporter of racial equality, a position that became increasingly dangerous as Reconstruction ended. He had a daughter, Emma Margaret Ashford, born in 1874.
E. M. The initials matched. Emma would have been ten in 1884, the same age as Clara.
She would have grown up hearing her father talk about racial justice and the importance of education for all people. When she met Clara at the school, she likely saw not a servant but a potential equal. Acting on that belief required tremendous courage from both girls. Jennifer identified the book Clara held: a copy of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley.
Wheatley had been an enslaved woman who became the first published African-American poet, and her work had been used by abolitionists as evidence against the racist ideology claiming Black people were intellectually inferior. For Emma to give this specific book to Clara was a deliberate statement, affirming Clara’s intellectual worth through the example of another Black woman who had overcome enormous obstacles. Just one year before the photograph was taken, Georgia had passed laws mandating separate schools for white and Black children. Social pressure reinforced legal segregation.
White families who allowed their children to form friendships with Black children faced ostracism and economic retaliation. Someone had paid a significant sum to have Clara photographed holding that specific book. The portrait was documentation, a deliberate record of something important. Dorothy Washington found another piece of the puzzle.
While searching through her grandmother’s belongings, she discovered a small bundle of papers wrapped in oilcloth. Among them was a fragment of a diary, written in careful, educated handwriting and dated September 1884, one month after the photograph. Handwriting analysis suggested it was written by a young woman. The content left no doubt about its significance.
“Mother discovered my friendship with Clara today,” the entry read. “She was horrified, not because Clara is unkind or unworthy, but simply because of her race. Mother says I am too old now to maintain such inappropriate associations. She has forbidden me from speaking with Clara except when absolutely necessary.
I am heartbroken. Clara is the truest friend I have ever known. When I taught her to read, she learned faster than any of father’s paying students. I gave Clara the Wheatley poems last month and we had her portrait taken holding it.
I wanted there to be proof of her intelligence, of her worth, of our friendship. ”
Emma had commissioned the photograph deliberately. She wanted proof of Clara’s intellectual life, visible evidence that could contradict the racist assumptions of her society. Raymond traced Emma’s later life.
She remained in Athens until 1890, when she married a businessman from Atlanta. She had three children and appeared in society pages, noted for charitable work and literary clubs. There was no mention of continued contact with Clara. Emma’s adult life appeared conventional, confined within the boundaries of acceptable white Southern society.
Jennifer’s search for Clara yielded a strong possibility: Clara Johnson, a twenty-six-year-old school teacher listed in the 1900 census. Born around 1874, she would have been ten in 1884. Church archives confirmed she had taught at a small school for Black children operating in the basement of the same church where the photograph had been found. She taught there from 1892 until 1918, educating hundreds of children.
A former student recalled that she made her students love books. “She said books were freedom, that they couldn’t take away what we knew, what we learned. ” She had an old book of poems she read to them, given to her by someone special. The Wheatley poems.
A woman named Patricia Hendricks read about the research and contacted Jennifer. Her grandmother had been one of Clara Johnson’s students and had inherited some of Clara’s belongings after her death in 1928. Patricia had found a box of letters she had never read carefully. The box contained approximately thirty letters, written on fine stationery and dated between 1884 and 1889.
They were from Emma to Clara, continuing their friendship in the only way possible after Emma’s mother had forbidden direct contact. Emma signed them only with her initials, E. M. , a precaution against discovery.
One letter from 1885 read: “Dearest Clara, I received word that you are reading the Wheatley poems to the younger children at your church. My heart soars knowing that you are sharing those beautiful words, that you are becoming the teacher I always knew you could be. ”
The letters stopped abruptly in 1889. There was no explanation, only silence.
Raymond found the explanation in a diary entry from Emma’s adult years. In 1920, Emma wrote about a visit to Athens. She had walked past the church where she knew Clara taught. She wanted to see her, to apologize for her long silence.
“The truth is that James found my letters to Clara before we married. He was furious. He made me promise to end all contact with Clara as a condition of our marriage. I was young and frightened and convinced myself that I had no choice.
But I have thought about Clara every day for 30 years. ”
She stood outside the church but couldn’t go in. As she turned to leave, a group of children came out, and one little girl was reading aloud from a book of poetry. She recognized it even from a distance.
The Wheatley poems she had given Clara in 1884. Clara had kept it, and continued to share it with others. “I failed her friendship,” Emma wrote, “but she did not fail herself. ”
They never reconciled.
Clara died in 1928, Emma in 1945. The final question remained: why had the photograph been hidden in the church wall? Dorothy Washington’s grandmother had told her that Miss Clara placed precious items in the church walls during the 1915 renovation, asking the workers to hide them for safekeeping. She said they were too important to risk losing.
Clara had deliberately hidden the photograph and Emma’s letters, preserving them within the walls of the church where she taught. It was an act of preservation, but also of protection, hiding evidence of a friendship that remained socially unacceptable. The photograph was proof of Clara’s intellectual life, her worth, her right to education and dignity. Someone had once seen her not as a servant but as an equal.
That sense of worth she passed onto her students for decades. The Atlanta Historical Preservation Society organized an exhibition featuring the photograph, the letters, and the full story. On opening day, Jennifer watched a group of school children study the photograph. Their teacher explained the story, and one child announced, “That’s stupid,” that friendship could be forbidden based on race.
The others nodded in agreement. Clara’s face, holding that book of poems, continued to teach lessons about worth, courage, and the enduring power of education to challenge injustice. The photograph that had looked sweet and simple had revealed a story of friendship, betrayal, and the complicated ways people navigate unjust systems.
Clara’s determination, preserved in silver and copper for over a century, still spoke to anyone who took the time to see what she was holding in her hands.