T-Rex BBQ Restaurant in Berkeley, California.
Ajuan Mance
Category Archives: Art, Black Men, African American, Artist
1001 Black Men #872
Garberville, California, July 2015.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #871
Black men turn up in the most interesting locations. Four hours north of Oakland, in Humboldt County, Garberville is the last place anyone would expect to see a person of African descent. And yet, while I was there, I crossed paths with several Black men. Perhaps they were pursuing careers in the production and distribution of the local cash crop.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #870
I recently attended my family’s biennial reunion. Every two years, the extended family on my dad’s side gathers at a central location to reconnect, to reminisce, and to celebrate those who have gone before us. This year the reunion was in Durham, North Carolina. Though our family is from South Carolina, education and career opportunities have taken a critical mass of our relatives to the Raleigh-Durham area. This area is also known as the Research Triangle, and it’s the home of Duke University, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Central University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Research Triangle has one of the highest concentrations of PhD.s of any region in the U.S. Despite its current identity, evidence of the area’s agricultural roots is everywhere you look. This drawing depicts a gentleman I noticed during a trip to a local mall. For the background, I modified a 19th-century blueprint of a tobacco barn. Old barns dot the whole region, and I enjoy the challenge of reconciling the higher education-based economy today with the tobacco and cotton plantations in its past.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #869
At the Powell Street BART station, San Francisco, California.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #868
At the Fruitvale BART station, Oakland, California.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #867
A portrait of Oakland-based artist Duane Deterville, from a photo I took at the “Our Lives Matter” show at Solespace. Duane and Refa One (see 1001 Black Men #866) have collaborated on at least two pieces I’ve seen, and they’re two of the most interesting, insightful, and talented artists with whom I’ve have the pleasure of showing my work.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #866
1001 Black Men #865
125th St., Harlem, New York, April 2015.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #864
There’s something I like about the kind of beard this brotha is wearing. Some Black men I see around Oakland wear similarly shaped beards, but braided. Others wear them loose (like the man in this drawing), but with much the same effect. I think I like this specific beard style because it reminds me of the beards of the Egyptian pharaohs.
Let me be clear: Some of the kings of Egypt were Black Africans, and the people of ancient Egypt, prior to the incursion of the Greeks, were most certainly not white people. My belief in the greatness and wonder of Black people does not, however, rely heavily (or at all) on the notion that there were (and are) Black kings and queens. After all, most of us don’t have royal ancestry, and throughout most of human history, monarchs have not generally been known for their kind and compassionate use of their power.
Beheadings, foot servants, and excessive wealth aside, though, the Egyptian pharaohs are fascinating to me, if only because the artifacts of their dynasties enable us to reach back into the ancient past and lay our eyes or (in some cases) our hands on real material evidence of how far into the past the roots of our humanity–our feelings, concerns, and conceits–truly extend.
Ajuan Mance