ABSTRACT
In 2007, I attended an auction of African American art in New York City. It was a sunny and warm fall afternoon. The mood was festive, and many of the people sitting in the twelve rows of seats were black. Black women were in the chairs to my left and right, and two rows ahead of me the mother of a famous black celebrity sat. Just before the auction started I noticed Gabrielle Boyd whom I had interviewed three years earlier. I remembered how she had led me through her home and talked with me about how buying black art and going to black museums and galleries nourished her sense of self as black.
