Coffee With A Black Guy - 1/13/2025

James Joyce III is Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Coffee With A Black Guy, an innovative movement in which he facilitates conversations about race and perspective for community groups and organizations. Joyce is a former award-winning journalist and runner up in the 2021 Santa Barbara mayoral election. To learn more about Coffee with a Black Guy, which provides both private and community offerings visit www.cwabg.com

Initially launched in the summer of 2016, CWABG serves as a safe place for interactive, community conversations about a variety of issues from the perspective of a black man. It's been a growing, grassroots effort hosted by Joyce and his team to help put an end to racism. Simply put: Coffee. Connection. Conversation. For these efforts and more, several organizations have recognized Joyce and his innovation, including the Ventura County branch of the NAACP who awarded Joyce with their 2018 Distinguished Citizen Award. It's bestowed upon an individual whose groundbreaking work increases understanding and awareness of racial and social issues. Forbes also featured Joyce and his work with CWABG in a piece published during the Covid-19 outbreak. In that, Joyce was recognized for his outstanding leadership in aiding anti-racist conversations even during a worldwide pandemic. He's also served as keynote speaker for the University of British Columbia’s 2021 Social Enterprise Conference.  

For much of the past decade, Joyce also served as District Director for State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, who represented nearly 1 million constituents within Santa Barbara and Ventura counties until terming out in Dec. 2020. In that role, Joyce was responsible for the day-to-day operations representing the Senator and her work. Known as a sturdy leader and champion for justice, Joyce has served on various advisory boards in the area including Impact Hub Santa Barbara (now Kiva Cowork), the Ventura County Leadership Academy (Joyce was awarded the 2021 Alumnus of the Year), and the Santa Barbara Young Black Professionals.

Seeking to put his background and experience to best use, in November 2021 Joyce finished 2nd among 6 candidates in the race for Mayor of Santa Barbara, CA capturing key media endorsements during the campaign. Joyce finished with 27 percent of the votes cast.

Joyce is also on the board for the Common Table Foundation (formerly the Lois and Walter Capps Project), the California Association of Marriage & Family Therapist Education Foundation, Sanctuary Centers of Santa Barbara, as well as the national board for Student African American Brotherhood (SAAB), where he helped found the collegiate chapter while a student-athlete at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

Prior to working in the public service sector, Joyce, a Maryland-native, served as a newspaper journalist in several diverse communities across the country covering a variety of subjects; from education to crime, local politics, features and more. An award-winning journalist, Joyce is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., currently serving on the executive board of the Xi Iota Lambda Alumni Chapter, seated in Camarillo, CA.

Javon Hood- Hello! My name is Javon! I’m a Graduate student at Antioch University's Seattle Campus. I completed the Bachelor's degree program in Health Counseling and Psychology this past winter and through the MA Pathways program started the Master’s degree program in Marriage Family and Therapy this last spring. My vision after the program is to open my own private practice where I can work as a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and also use my space as a wellness center to help Black and Brown young men through therapy and physical fitness. In my free time I have mentored young Black and Brown men for the last eleven years and counting. 

Chandler Gerdes (They/Them) is a Social Justice advocate, Sex Educator, and continuing student at Antioch U in pursuit of their Masters in CFT with a focus in Sex Therapy. With a cultural background that connects Long Hair Tsalagi, a traumatic Conservative-Christian upbringing, multiple moves around the country and a lifelong journey of discovering their Two-Spirit nature, Chandler stands at an intersection for multiple ways of thinking and knowing. Having lived in and travelled to numerous places, they learned early on to love the cultural and communal differences between all of us. Chandler is committed to indigenous ways of thinking, intersectional approaches to advocacy and service, and a continuous journey of growth and learning. Free the Land, free the People.

Liza Muñoz- In 2023, I became a proud Antiochian, after a 21 year hiatus, in the Undergrad program in psychology: I plan on attending graduate school with a focus on psychology. For the past 32 years I’ve worked for a law firm representing injured workers, I’ve traveled, and am a social justice activist at heart. My interests include history, social justice, and culture with an emphasis on women’s rights, Palestinian liberation, civil rights, mental health justice, prison reform and LGBTQIA+ rights. Since November 2024, I’ve joined the Working Families Party. I identify as Spirit River.

Caste : the origins of our discontents

Authors: Isabel Wilkerson(Author)

New York : Random House, [2020]

Summary"As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power--which groups have it and which do not. In this book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people--including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others--she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of America life today."--Provided by the publisher

They came before Columbus : the African presence in ancient America

Authors: Ivan Van Sertima (Author)

New York : Random House Trade Paperbacks, [2003]

Summary: Examines cultural analogies between Native Americans and Africans, offering evidence of the presence of African explorers in the New World centuries before the arrival of Columbus.

Makes me wanna holler : a young Black man in America

Authors: Nathan McCall

New York : Vintage Books, ©1994, ©2016.

Summary: Examining the complexities of the problems of Black youths from an insider's perspective, an African-American journalist recalls his troubled childhood, his rehabilitation while in prison, and his successful career.