A Moving Image

And the echoes of history

Somehow I almost missed perhaps the most iconic image of the Democratic National Convention. Thankfully, a friend brought it to my attention yesterday evening. Undoubtedly, if the instant fame the photograph has achieved is any indication, many if not most of you have already seen it. 

It was captured last Thursday night by New York Times staff photographer Todd Heisler as Vice President Kamala Harris accepted her party’s nomination for president. Harris is visible in the image but is not the dominant figure. Instead, it is the little girl in pigtails viewed from behind who frames the foreground. 

Harris is the one in the camera’s focus, but it is the child watching her that turns what could have been just another shot of a politician at a podium into a poignant work of art that epitomizes a singular moment in this nation’s history. We learn from the photo’s caption that the little girl is none other than Harris’ young great-niece, Amara Ajagu. 

It’s impossible to fully convey the impact of the photograph in a few words (or even the proverbial thousand). While the image is visually striking as a composition, its significance is amplified when you consider all it is capturing. This is a young Black girl watching a Black woman speak with power and conviction as she potentially ascends to the highest office in the world—a position that Michelle Obama had wryly suggested a few nights prior might be one of those “Black jobs” that Donald Trump so outrageously labeled and derided. 

Earlier that evening, the girl in the photo, Amara, and her sister Leela had stood on the same stage as their great-aunt for another memorable moment at the convention. The two girls and actress Kerry Washington had led the raucous crowd at the United Center in a lesson for the world on how to pronounce Kamala’s name (comma - la). The chants that emerged — Kamala, Kamala — shook the rafters. 

The pronunciation lesson was a pointed exercise because many Republican politicians — especially Trump — mispronounce Kamala’s name with a sneering sense of vindictive pride. Mocking the names of Black and brown people to demean them and deny their rightful place in our democracy as fellow human beings has been a long-held practice of bigots. It is bullying and a cynical and purposeful act of othering. 

As I looked at the photograph, contemplating what it captured and what had preceded it, I was struck deeply by its historical context and what it means in our current age. Even though Harris’s great-nieces can watch a powerful, self-assured, and highly qualified presidential candidate thrive in the spotlight, this election and the fate of this nation are far from a given. This image was taken at a convention, not an inauguration. What will happen at the polls in November is unknowable. 

What we do know is that the presidential campaign is also being shaped by countervailing forces that represent the very opposite of what was captured in this now-iconic photograph. There is a deep wellspring of hate in the United States, especially towards Black women, that has animated this nation since its founding. It is a harrowing history of white supremacy unleashing unspeakable horrors and violence. It is enslavement, Jim Crow, redlining, and unequal pay. It is repulsive tropes and memes. It is being in a room and treated as if you are not there or are a lesser human being. Every Black woman who has achieved anything in this country, or more accurately, any Black woman who has lived in this country, has experienced some form of both overt and implicit discrimination. 

Donald Trump eagerly trades in this cancerous bigotry. He is a weak man who uses it to define his privilege and to power the MAGA movement, which is all about turning back the clock to when women like Kamala Harris “knew their place” and could never have reached the stature she has earned. 

Seeing the convention photograph reminded me of two other famous images of Black girls in American history. The first was the Norman Rockwell painting of six-year-old Ruby Bridges walking to her first day at William Franz Elementary School in New Orleans in November 1960. She was the first Black child to attend the school after a federal court had ordered the city’s school system to integrate. 

Rockwell was known for his often sentimental depictions of American life, but this image is quite different. Painted in 1963, he titled the work “The Problem We All Live With.”  Indeed, 60 years later, we still live with this same problem in many ways. Like Amara, Ruby’s hair is also in pigtails. But unlike the photograph, it is her face that is featured. The federal marshals protecting her path to an education are headless in the painting. All that matters is what this young girl must be going through. You can get a sense from the vile slur written on the wall. 

Then, there is another iconic image, a photograph of a similar scene. It is of an older girl, Elizabeth Eckford, who, as a 15-year-old, was one of the nine Black students who integrated Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957. The white faces, mostly girls, contorted in hate, have come to symbolize the ugliness of the era. In contrast, Eckford’s stoicism is one of the most inspiring acts of American courage ever captured on film. 

For all the power of the moving image, still photographs can often pack a far more lasting punch. We look at them and find new details and meanings with each viewing. They tell stories that inspire us, haunt us, and come to speak for not only the moment they capture but the era that surrounds them. Their meaning is shaped by what follows and how those who get to witness them interpret and learn from them. 

How we will look at the convention image in the years ahead will depend on what happens next. But I like to think that we are on a path to a more just and equitable future, that we will someday see all of these images in an exhibition of progression that charts our nation’s inexorable journey of progress. 

Finally, thinking of these iconic pictures also brought another joyful one to mind. I thought it was a perfect way to end these ruminations.