By LEAH WILLINGHAM

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.

Related Articles

Federal immigration crackdown ends in Charlotte, North Carolina, sheriff says

GE Appliances bolsters ties with US suppliers as it moves production from China to Kentucky

Starbucks union says 30 more US stores are joining week-old strike

US homes sales rose in October as homebuyers seized on declining mortgage rates

US filings for jobless benefits remained in historically healthy range during government shutdown

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 jar is one of two returned to Drake’s family as part of a historic agreement this month between Drake’s descendants and the MFA Boston, one of the institutions that holds pieces of his work.

The vessels are among hundreds of surviving works by “Dave the Potter,” an enslaved man who labored in the alkaline-glazed stoneware potteries of Edgefield, South Carolina, in the decades before and during the Civil War. Dave signed many of his jars — and inscribed some with rhyming couplets — an extraordinary and unparalleled assertion of identity and authorship during a time when literacy for enslaved people was criminalized.

The agreement represents what experts say is the first major case of art restitution involving works created by an enslaved person in the U.S. — a process traditionally associated with families seeking the return of art looted by the Nazis in World War II.

It’s also rare: as enslaved people were denied legal personhood and documentation, tracing the ownership or lineage of their works is often impossible.

Children’s book author Yaba Baker, Dave’s 54-year-old fourth-generation grandson, called the return “a spiritual restoration.” Baker, whose first two children’s books explore Black history, said the family felt a dual sense of pride and grief. Many Black families, he noted, struggle to trace their ancestry past a few generations; recovering Dave’s work gave them back a piece of themselves.

After the museum returned the pots to the family, they sold one back so people can continue to learn from Dave’s legacy. The other is on lease to the museum, at least temporarily. The MFA Boston said it wouldn’t disclose how much it paid.

“We don’t want to hide them away in our house. We want other people to be inspired by it,” Baker said. “We want people to know that this person, Dave the Potter, who was told he was nothing but a tool to be used, realized he had humanity. He deserved his own name on his pots. He deserved to write poetry. He deserved to know who he was.”

David Drake

Laboring in the pottery yards in the South Carolina heat, Dave etched his name next to the date — July 12, 1834 — on a clay jar that would be sold by his owner and used to store pork and beef rations for enslaved people like him across the region.

He also inscribed the jar, which would likely end up on a cotton plantation in South Carolina, with the couplet:

“Put every bit all between / Surely this jar will hold 14” to mark the jar’s 14-gallon capacity.

The vessel was the first of hundreds, if not thousands, of stoneware jugs and jars made by Dave alongside other enslaved potters over 50 years before and during the Civil War.

Much of Dave’s poetry followed Christian themes. As he aged, he wrote more and explored themes related to his enslavement. One of his most resonant poems was etched into a jar he produced in 1857, around the time scholars believe Dave and his family were separated after being sold to different slave owners.

“I wonder where is all my relation / friendship to all – and every nation”

Multiple Drake descendants said they felt especially moved by Dave’s question about his relations — and that their restitution felt like Dave’s question was finally answered.

Claiming authorship

It’s unclear what became of the jars after Dave died. The MFA purchased them in 1997 from an art dealer. MFA Boston’s Art of the Americas Chair Ethan Lasser said he thinks they survived mostly from pure “benign neglect” in South Carolina because they were large and difficult to transport or break.

A signed stoneware vessel created by enslaved potter David Drake is seen at the Museum of Fine Arts, Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

The MFA has two Drake pots, a “Poem Jar” and a “Signed Jar,” both from 1857.

The jar the Drake descendants sold back to the museum is similar to the 1857 pot on which Dave asks about his relations because he uses first-person language that suggests ownership — something that makes it especially powerful, Lasser said.

“Think of this as an enslaved person, speaking in the first person claiming authorship,” Lasser said.

In the poem, Dave writes:

“I made this Jar = cash – / though its called = lucre Trash”.

On more than one pot, Dave writes “and Mark” next to his own name, suggesting he worked on the piece with another enslaved laborer. Oral histories indicate that Dave was disabled after losing a leg, although it’s unclear how, and may have needed help with his ceramic work later in life.

His last surviving jar, made as the Civil War raged on in 1862, reads: “I made this Jar, all of cross / If you don’t repent, you will be lost”.

Researchers believe Drake died sometime in the 1870s after gaining his freedom in the Civil War. He is accounted for in the 1870 census, but not in the 1880 census.

For the Drake descendants, encountering Dave’s work has been both moving and difficult — a collision of pride in his artistry and grief for the conditions in which he lived.

Yaba Baker, who has a 17-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son, said the experience gave his family something they had never had before: a traceable link.

“I was able to turn to my son and say, ‘This is your lineage.’ Dave the Potter was not only a great artist — he resisted oppressive laws, even though he could have been killed for it,” he said. “That’s what you come from. Before, we didn’t have that link.”

Yaba Baker said he often thinks about the anguish Dave may have felt if, as some historians speculate, the poems on his jars were attempts to signal to family members sold away from him — a common trauma of slavery.

“I can’t imagine not knowing where my own kids are,” Baker said. “Completing that circle is very moving for me.”

For his mother, Pauline Baker, discovering Dave’s story filled a void many Black families know intimately.

A stoneware vessel created by enslaved potter David Drake is seen at the Museum of Fine Arts, Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

“If you’re not African American, you don’t understand the missing links in your history,” she said. “When you do find a connection, it becomes very personal.” She studies his life — the heat, the labor, the loss of a limb — and wonders how he managed such precision and focus. “He did not allow them to enslave his mind,” said Baker, 78, a retired speech pathologist who worked for three decades in Washington, D.C., public schools.

Since the MFA agreement was announced, the family has heard from museums and private collectors who hold Dave’s work and want to discuss what ethical restitution might look like for them as well.

Daisy Whitner said she felt her ancestor’s presence each time she slid her hand inside the jar.

“It broke my heart,” she said. “The outside is beautiful, but when you think about what he went through — sunup to sundown, in that South Carolina heat, on one leg — this poor man in bondage had no say in working so hard for nothing.”

By DAVID CRARY and HOLLY MEYER

The U.S. feminist movement’s perpetual quest for gender equality has suffered notable setbacks during President Donald Trump’s second term — including the dismantling of various nondiscrimination programs and the ouster of several high-ranking women in the military.

Related Articles

Trump says Democrats’ video message to military is ‘seditious behavior’ punishable by death

Beliefs clash among students, parents and teachers as the Ten Commandments go up in Texas classrooms

These are the sights and sounds of Trump’s immigration crackdown in Chicago

Trump and Republicans once more face a tough political fight over Obama-era health law

CDC website changed to contradict scientific conclusion that vaccines don’t cause autism

Yet strikingly, outspoken women from the Catholic Church and the ranks of conservative evangelicals are engaging with gusto in ongoing political and social debates even as their faiths maintain longstanding rules against women serving as priests or senior pastors. Many of these women see these ministry barriers as a nonissue.

In a Dallas suburb, more than 6,500 conservative Christian women attended an Oct. 11 conference organized by commentator Allie Beth Stuckey. “Welcome to the fight,” was her greeting.

Ahead of the conference, Stuckey evoked the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, saying she had been inundated with messages from Christian women saying, “We’re done sitting on the sidelines of politics and culture.’’

“We’re not backing down; we’re doubling down,” Stuckey declared. “We’re unapologetically saying no to the lies of feminism and progressivism and yes to God’s Word.”

Some Catholic nuns are on the front lines

Among Catholic women, there is a different kind of passion exhibited by sisters from religious orders who are on the front lines of social-justice advocacy.

A striking example came in September after Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, praised Kirk as “a modern-day St. Paul” who was a worthy role model for young people.

Leaders of the Sisters of Charity of New York, an order founded in 1809, issued a public rebuke.

“What Cardinal Dolan may not have known is that many of Mr. Kirk’s words were marked by racist, homophobic, transphobic, and anti-immigrant rhetoric, by violent pro-gun advocacy, and by the promotion of Christian nationalism,” the nuns said. “These prejudicial words do not reflect the qualities of a saint.”

“In this moment,” the nuns added, “we reaffirm our mission: to walk with all people who are poor and marginalized, to welcome immigrants and refugees, to defend the dignity of LGBTQ+ persons, and to labor for peace in a world saturated with violence.”

Another religious sister, Norma Pimentel of the Missionaries of Jesus, is a leading migrant-rights activist along the U.S.-Mexico border. She runs Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, including a respite center for beleaguered migrants in McAllen, Texas.

FILE – Sister Norma Pimentel, the director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, plays with migrant children on the floor of the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, Dec. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell’Orto, file)

At a recent forum in Washington, she recalled visiting immigrant families at a detention center in a “terrible condition,” and being moved to tears.

“I saw Border Patrol agents looking at us, and they, too, were moved and were crying,” she said. “When I walked out of there, the officer turned to me and said, ‘Thank you, sister, for helping us realize they’re human beings.’”

Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a professor in the theology department at Fordham University, praised Pimentel’s advocacy and the Sisters of Charity leadership’s statement as “the model of the way women show up in the public square.”

“Women religious are the face of the church,” she said.

Overall, Imperatori-Lee said she was disheartened by “this moment of very serious backlash to the gains that women and other minorities have made.” Yet she finds reasons to be encouraged.

“A lot of undergrads are passionate about women’s equality in the church,” she said of Fordham, a Jesuit school now with a woman as its president for the first time.

“Even if the headlines about our cultural backsliding are true, the on-the-ground activism that you’re seeing among young people shows they’re are up to the task,” she said.

Conservative evangelical women navigate a patriarchal doctrine

After the Catholic Church, the second largest denomination in the U.S. is the Southern Baptist Convention, whose evangelical doctrine espouses traditional gender roles at home and in the church. That includes barring women from being pastors, a belief that has put the SBC in the spotlight in recent years following high-profile ousting of churches that disobeyed the prohibition.

But this doesn’t mean Southern Baptist men are domineering nor that the women are doormats, said Susie Hawkins, a Bible teacher in Texas and wife of a former denominational leader.

“That’s not what complementarianism is,” said Hawkins, referring to the doctrine that men and women have distinct God-given roles. “The women I know have the freedom to speak their mind to their husbands, and to work through problems in situations with them, within certain boundaries.”

Many embrace being wives, mothers and women in the church, said Hawkins, who has watched Erika Kirk, the wife of the late Charlie Kirk, publicly demonstrate that same satisfaction and joy.

“I think this is really, really important for Christian women,” said Hawkins. “She exemplifies a Christian wife and mom who is not ashamed of her love for her husband and her desire to serve him and love him and their kids.”

Hawkins predicts Erika Kirk, now head of her husband’s Turning Point USA, will be influential: “I think her voice — it will be heard from this point on.”

Stuckey, who grew up Southern Baptist, recently addressed women’s roles in church and society on her “Relatable” podcast, following online blowback from men on the right for giving a speech at a Turning Point college event. Stuckey reiterated her belief that women should not be pastors nor preach from the pulpit on Sundays, and said she has turned down opportunities because of it.

FILE – A messenger attending the Southern Baptist Convention participates in worship during the 2025 SBC Annual Meeting, June 10, 2025, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Richard W. Rodriguez, file)

“A gentle and quiet spirit is something that women are told that we should have in Scripture, and we should. But that does not mean silence,” she said. “Women are also called to raise a voice and to be a bastion and refuge of clarity and courage.”

Most Southern Baptist women embrace accepted callings in the church, including in women’s and children’s ministry, said Hawkins, noting a special commissioning service at First Baptist Church of Dallas celebrating these roles.

“I just don’t think you see a lot of malcontent women complaining about not being able to be a pastor,” she said.

The Texas megachurch, which upholds that only men can serve as senior pastor, honored 13 women, said senior pastor, the Rev. Robert Jeffress.

“Instead of focusing on the one ministry women are prohibited from doing (senior pastor) we wanted to recognize and celebrate all the things that women can do in the church,” Jeffress said via email.

Hawkins has encountered a few women who felt called to off-limits roles in Southern Baptist churches. She was straightforward with them.

“Go do what God’s called you to do, but we’re not the denomination for you. You’re just going to get frustrated here. These boundaries were established a long time ago, so go where you can be happy,” said Hawkins.

Advocates of women’s ordination vow to persist

Long-established boundaries remain in the Catholic Church as well.

As Pope Leo XIV — the first American Pope — settles into his papacy, he has made clear he has no immediate interest in advocating for women to be able to serve as deacons, let alone to be ordained as priests.

Yet women continue to serve in high-level administrative jobs at the Vatican and at Catholic institutions in the U.S., such as Catholic Charities and the Catholic Health Association.

FILE – Advocates for women ordination hold banners during a protest in Rome just in front of the Vatican where Pope Francis is holding the Synod of Bishops, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, file)

“Within the Catholic Church when we look only at priesthood, we fail to look at the primary mission of the church — it’s education, health care, social service agencies,” said Susan Timoney, a professor of pastoral studies at The Catholic University of America.

“We need to tell that part of the story better,” Timoney said.

The largest U.S. organization working to open the priesthood to women is the Women’s Ordination Conference, which will mark its 50th anniversary in late November.

Its executive director, Kate McElwee, said she is alarmed by “anti-women rhetoric and policies being pushed out all over the globe” including in the U.S. She wants her group to function as a “Ministry of Irritation, making our cause as bold and loud and creative as possible.”

“As things get more polarized, we’re seeing more people find their courage in this moment,” she said, citing the Sisters of Charity as an example. “As feminism is under attack more broadly, our movement will become a more important symbol of resistance.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

OSAGE, Minn. — Some young boys from Lakes Country have a fish story to tell and it just may save someone’s life.

A 14-year-old and his younger brother fell through the ice on a lake near Park Rapids

“Right there, that little bubble type area is right where we fell through,” said Gabe Savage, who was rescued from the ice. Fourteen-year-old Gabe pointed to the area on Straight Lake in Osage, Minn., where he and his 13-year-old brother had to be rescued Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 18.

“Just itching to fish, just itching to get out on the early ice,” Savage said.

Gabe said he surveyed the ice with his brother before going out and noticed it was about an inch thick. That’s why they did not walk on the ice but used their otter sled to slide across with an ice pick.

“We just pushed ourselves out there, we used that to make our holes and stuff, after that the water just started coming out of the holes; after that we really weighed it down and started cracking and we just caved in,” Savage said.

A neighbor who was watching the boys noticed what happened about 100 yards from shore and called 911. Drone video from the Becker County Sheriff’s Office shows the conditions at the time of the rescue. The water and ice combination made it difficult to reach the boys, and it took about 25 minutes.

“You could feel the ice vibrating so I had the idea in my mind we could capsize, I’m so thankful we didn’t,” Savage said.

While the boys may have made a bad choice to go out on the thin ice, they are being given credit for making a good decision.

“My one son had a life jacket on and my other son has a suit that has some flotation devices built into the suit itself and ice fishing suit,” said Cyrus Gust, the boys’ father.

First responders said the use of the otter sled was critical in keeping them above water and dry until help arrived.

“So glad I didn’t drown, or get hypothermia or I could still be in the hospital right now, or who knows,” Savage said.

Gabe admits sharing his story is embarrassing but thought his message could save others from making the same choice.

“I want other people to realize that they should just wait and how dangerous it is to be out on the ice this early and when it’s thin, it’s just not a smart idea and I should have realized that yesterday,” Gabe said.

It is a fish tale these brothers will tell for years to come about the dangers of thin ice. Mom and Dad plan on making the boys write a report about the dangers of thin ice.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says for thin ice, anything less than 4 inches should be avoided. At 4 inches, it is only safe to go on foot. No snowmobiles until it is at least 5 to 7 inches thick, and no ATVs until there is 8 inches of ice. Cars can go out when it is 9 to 12 inches thick, and it will be safe for most trucks when the ice is 13 to 17 inches thick. There should be no ice fishing castles allowed until the ice is 20 inches or thicker.

Temperature, snow cover, currents, springs and rough fish all affect the relative safety of ice. Ice is seldom the same thickness over a single body of water; it can be two feet thick in one place and one inch thick a few yards away. (Courtesy of the Minnesota DNR)

The DNR tells WDAY even when the ice is thick enough to travel on, that does not mean it is completely safe. Different parts of the lake can freeze at different rates, and there are warning signs everyone should watch out for.

“Whether it be discoloration from some thickness from one location on the lake to another, you know, bubbles forming, those kinds of things, water on the surface, all things to be aware of,” said Grey Corbus, conservation officer with the Minnesota DNR.

Related Articles

Give to the Max Day off to a generous start

Twin Cities ICE employee charged in child sex sting, Bloomington police say

Florida university administrator named new president of St. Cloud State

Authorities say man, 75, was killed by Clearwater County deputy after firing flare gun

MN paid family medical leave will leverage data, selfies to fight fraud

Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams is weighing new appointments to the Rent Guidelines Board in an effort to block Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s pledged rent freeze. But finding candidates willing to take the post—and face the wrath of tenant groups—could be a tall order.

Rent stabilized tenants marched to Gracie Mansion in September to protest the latest round of rent hikes under Mayor Adams (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

As outgoing Mayor Eric Adams weighs appointing new members to the city’s Rent Guidelines Board during his final weeks in office, tenant groups have a message for any potential candidates: Don’t take the gig. 

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has pledged to appoint an RGB that will vote to freeze rents for the city’s 2 million tenants in rent stabilized apartments—a key measure in his campaign’s affordability platform. 

Carrying out a rent freeze would be harder to do if Adams makes any last-minute changes to the board, where several current members are serving in “expired” terms, meaning they could be reappointed or replaced by the mayor at any time. 

Before the end of the year, Adams—who opposes a rent freeze—could replace two public members, one landlord member, and one tenant member who would serve the remainder of terms that extend through 2026.

But tenant groups say they won’t make it easy for him. 

“If Adams asks you to serve on the RGB, we call on you to refuse,” the Rent Justice Coalition, made up of several tenant advocacy groups that have been fighting for a rent freeze, said in a joint statement Monday. 

“Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani won the most votes in a mayoral election since 1969 by centering a 4-year rent freeze for rent-stabilized tenants,” the Coalition said, adding that stacking the board now would “overrule” the desire of those voters. 

“Tenants will protest you every step of the way,” the Coalition—which include grassroots groups like the Crown Heights Tenant Union, Met Council on Housing and TenantsPAC—said. “So don’t make a deal with the devil or we’ll give you hell!”

Mayor Eric Adams and Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. (Benny Polatseck/Mayoral Photography Office, Ron Adar/Shutterstock.com)

Under Adams, stabilized tenants saw rent hikes each of the last four years, totaling a 12 percent increase. The mayor has criticized Mandani’s promised freeze, saying it would hurt small property owners who are already struggling to stay afloat. 

Groups that represent landlords of stabilized units say they rely on annual rent increases to offset other rising costs, like property taxes and insurance. A freeze, they say, would force owners to defer maintenance in already-aging buildings at a time when a growing segment of the city’s affordable housing stock is in financial distress. 

Mayor Adams cited those same reasons in June, when he asked the RGB’s members to “adopt the lowest increase possible” on stabilized rents this year (the board ultimately voted for a 3 percent increase on one-year leases, which took effect in October). 

City Limits reached out to several current Rent Guidelines Board members about potential re-appointment, but they were tight-lipped about any movement to stack the board.

In a statement to City Limits Wednesday, a spokesperson for Adams said the mayor “cares deeply about ensuring that his efforts to support working-class New Yorkers and promote the creation of as much affordable housing as possible continue beyond this administration.”

“Just as he inherited appointees from the Rent Guidelines Board when he took office, Mayor Adams has the authority to appoint members to the board,” the spokesperson said. “As with any potential appointments, we will announce them if and when they happen.”

But finding the right candidates to fill the posts will likely be tricky. To avoid a freeze, Adams would need to find a tenant member willing to raise the rent (likewise, should Adams appoint new members, Mamdami would need to find a landlord member willing to vote for a rent freeze).

(Credit: Patrick Spauster/City Limits)

To be eligible, appointees must have at least five years experience in either finance, economics or housing, but can’t be an officer with any property owner groups and can’t own or manage rentals impacted by RGB decisions. 

“I think anyone who’s taking this job under Eric Adams is completely an ideologue,” said Cea Weaver, director of the New York State Tenant Bloc, which has championed Mamdani’s rent freeze plan—a plan that proved popular at the polls. 

“New York voters were just like: ‘We want the rent freeze guy,’” Weaver added. “I can’t imagine who would accept it, other than someone who really wants to thwart a rent freeze, of which there are plenty of people.”

Mamdani’s camp has maintained that a rent freeze is justified after several years of increases for stabilized tenants, who earn a median income of $60,000 a year. He said he’d help small landlords struggling to maintain their buildings via existing city programs and by looking to curb rising costs like property taxes. 

Over 440,000 very low income tenants live in rent-regulated apartments, according to the Community Service Society. Nearly 70 percent of renters in regulated housing are Black or Latino, and 41 percent are immigrants. 

Earlier this week, Mayor-elect Mamdani met with organizers from CAAAV Voice, an advocacy group in Queens that’s part of the Rent Justice Coalition, “to talk about the future of our fight for a rent freeze and against displacement in New York City,” according to a post on his social media accounts. 

“We share a belief that everyone deserves to live a safe, dignified life, especially the working-class immigrants this city relies on,” Mamdani wrote.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post As Mayor Adams Looks to Stack Rent Board, Tenant Groups Press Potential Appointees to ‘Refuse’ appeared first on City Limits.