BOSTON (AP) — 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.

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