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When Newman T. Baker first tried to play the washboard years ago, he had what he describes as an almost out-of-body experience. Though he had never played before, his hands seemed to glide over the ribbed surface of the board as if, he said, “my ancestors were showing me how to play.”

The washboard — a once common device for handwashing clothes that has also has a history as a rhythm instrument — is now Newman’s instrument of choice as a member of the New York City-based Ebony Hillbillies, an African American string band. The connection to ancestors he felt when he first played the washboard inspired him to learn about his grandfather, the Rev. T. Nelson Baker, who in 1903 became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in philosophy in the United States — from Yale.

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