Inside the wide mouth of a stoneware jar, Daisy Whitner’s fingertips found a slight rise in the clay — a mark she hoped was a trace left behind by her ancestor, an enslaved potter who shaped the vessel nearly 175 years ago in South Carolina.

Standing in the gallery of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston last week, Whitner said she felt a quiet connection to her ancestor, David Drake, in that moment.

“I was telling the kids, ’Inside this jar, I’m sure I’m feeling his tears, sweat drops off his face, his arms,’” said 86-year-old Whitner, a Washington, D.C., resident and a retired account manager for The Washington Post.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston welcomed 16 descendants of David Drake to celebrate an ownership resolution regarding two works made by the enslaved potter and poet in 185

See Full Page