Today is my sister’s birthday. Here she is, aged about two and a half.

I love everything about this photo. The subject, the composition, the lighting. The pensive face, the little chin in the little hand. My entreaty to my mother. My unraveling braids. I don’t know who the photographer was, only that it was taken at a basketball game at C.H. Darden during what must have been its last season as a high school. And then the dam of segregation broke.