Amid Pandemic Conditions, Coffee with a Black Guy Keeps Up the Conversation

As protests following the murder of George Floyd in May demonstrated, pandemic conditions haven’t hampered dialogue about race and police brutality in America — if anything, says James Joyce III, months of house-bound isolation “have everybody’s attention focused on this thing that’s happening outside of their doors, whether it’s across the country or otherwise.” Joyce has kept those conversations going through his platform Coffee with a Black Guy (CWABG) — which, rather than faltering amid the pandemic, has reached out to influence dialogues on race across the nation.

Joyce, who was district director for recently retired state senator Hannah-Beth Jackson and has said he is “unofficially” thinking about running for mayor of Santa Barbara in November 2021, conceived the project from a simple idea: to provide spaces for Santa Barbarans to break the ice over coffee and talk about race. Since its first gathering of seven people in 2016, CWABG has grown to attract up to 35 people per event, with attendance ranging widely across ethnicities, ages, and professional backgrounds.