Did 3 Black sisters and white photographer secretly assist free slaves in 1860s? We uncovered the reality

Claim:

In the 1860s, three Black sisters named Clara, Ruth and Viola collaborated with white photographer Jonathan Whitmore to ship coded messages in footage to assist information slaves to freedom.

Rating:

In March 2026, a rumor circulated on-line that, within the 1860s, three Black sisters named Clara, Ruth and Viola secretly labored with a photographer named Jonathan Whitmore to free tons of of U.S. slaves. According to the declare, the sisters transmitted intelligence in Whitmore’s footage with coded hand positions and costume patterns. A girl named Dr. Amelia Grant of Howard University allegedly found the covert efforts following a 2019 go to to Harrison’s Auction House in Richmond, Virginia.

For instance, on Feb. 28, a person managing the Connected Souls YouTube channel uploaded a video (archived) with the title, “It was just a portrait of three sisters — but experts zoom in and discover a secret.” The clip featured a thumbnail picture supposedly exhibiting the three sisters carrying clothes and sitting for a photograph.

(Connected Souls/YouTube)

Other examples of the declare appeared on Facebook (archived), and Snopes readers contacted us to ask whether or not the rumor was true. One reader emailed with a reference to glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as tales “that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental”:

I watched this video and listened to this story it calls again to the early days of Snopes and glurge content material. The ladies are carrying wristwatches. I [can’t] discover an Ameila Grant at Howard University, any itemizing on the Smithsonian, and nothing on a reverse search of the picture. The video could be discovered right here:

We first used search engines like google comparable to Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo to find potential proof from credible sources about Clara, Ruth and Viola, in addition to Whitmore and Grant. We additionally seemed for any proof of an institution named Harrison’s Auction House in Richmond, Virginia. If the story was true, journalists with respected information shops, comparable to The Associated Press or Reuters, would have extensively reported on it following Grant’s alleged 2019 discovery. That was not the case. 

The rumor was fictional, as had been the names of the characters and public sale home. The person or customers managing the Connected Souls YouTube account — an individual or folks residing in Brazil, in response to the channel’s bio — used synthetic intelligence instruments to create inspiring tales and pretend photos about fictional historic occasions. 

Therefore, we have rated this declare false.

A immediate with the Google Gemini AI device SynthID Detector scanned the picture for a SynthID watermark — a hidden label Google provides to photographs made or manipulated with its AI platforms. In response, Gemini concluded, “A SynthID check of this image indicates that most or all of it was edited or generated with Google AI.”

GPTZero, a device that goals to detect AI-generated textual content, decided with 100% certainty the video’s captions had been AI-generated. The voice resembled AI-generated voices as effectively, as is commonplace with such YouTube channels and fictional, AI-generated movies. 

Creators of such content material capitalize on social media customers’ willingness to imagine and share the made-up tales, cashing in on promoting income both from the movies or from exterior web sites to which Facebook posts hyperlink. (Snopes has beforehand reported on the enterprise technique.)

Let us word right here: These sorts of AI detection instruments are fallible. Snopes cautions folks towards utilizing them for definitive solutions on media’s authenticity with out supporting proof.

The Connected Souls YouTube channel didn’t show any exterior contact strategies for journalists to ask questions on their pretend and fictional content material.

Snopes has debunked comparable rumors earlier than. For instance, in April 2025, we investigated a picture allegedly exhibiting Black American cowgirls through the American frontier period.