While the majority of the staff might be Black, John, who bought the property and developed it into a museum at his own expense, is a white man in his eighties. I first met John a few months before I visited the Whitney, at his second home, an extensive plot of farmland in Middleburg, Virginia. We sat at the table in his kitchen, which smelled like ginger and green tea, as he rolled up his sleeves and leaned back in his chair, brimming with equal parts confidence and vigor. His thick white beard wrapped around the bottom half of his face. His thin-framed, rectangular glasses sat slightly
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