This is a drawing from a recent afternoon of sketching at Peet’s Coffee & Tea in the Castro. What this drawing does not capture is the subject’s incredibly muscular body. I didn’t post this with the other drawings from this session, but I thought that this week would be a good time to post as many drawings of vivacious, beautiful, powerful Black men as I can. Just think of it as my way of reminding all of us that those who fear and kill Black people are not, in fact, defeating us.* Every Black man who is striving, thriving, or surviving enacts the daily defeat of those individuals and institutions that would see men of African descent reduced to subservience or eliminated entirely.

*By “us” I mean Black people and everyone who loves, befriends, creates family with, or makes community with Black people.

Ajuan Mance