Cxffeeblack Blog Posts
Love black people like you love black…everything.
“Black peoples have enriched every group, expect themselves”- Dr Claud Anderson.
Coffee, culture, creativity, music. The products of black people are consumed worldwide, yet for some reason the communities creating these innovations seem to be the last to enjoy the fruit of their labor. Why is it that?
Why is that “across cultures, darker people suffer more”? There’s been a million books written on this subject, but for us the answer is simple. We lack ownership.
To be honest, my children can’t wait on the...
Cxffee Black Like Me Pt 1: What We Learned When We Met The Lead Farmer Behind Guji Mane.
Tamiru and his family outside of their new home
Uraga, Guji Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia
Photo by Michael Grant
I honestly couldn’t believe it. The coffee growers we met in the town of Uraga in Guji had never met any African Americans in Ethiopia. How? And why did it take so long to reconnect defendant’s of the group of Africans stolen to grow coffee, with those who discovered. Of course, we knew we had never been to Africa before, let along to the Guji Zone of Ethiopia. That was the whole point of the trip. To come back home and learn...
on an all black supply chain in coffee
"Power is the ability to get things done despite the resistance and opposition of others" Dr. Claud Anderson, Powernomics
In two days we head to Africa to attempt to build an all black supply chain for our coffee.
Black farmers, black exporters, black importers, black roaster, black baristas, and marketing centered in hip hop culture that celebrates black rituals of consumption.
We understand that black communities globally are in need of reparations due to the effects of slavery and colonialism, and that much of the wealth generated by these systems can still be found circulating in the...
BLACK IS GXLD: On Afro Columbian Coffee and the Legacy of Slave Trade Latin America
“ACROSS CULTURES DARKER PEOPLE SUFFER MOST. WHY?”- Andre 3000
It’s a strange thing that black people, wherever they are, tend to be at the margins of society. Coffee is no exception to this pattern. In many ways it’s part of reason why. The legacy of the slave trade and colonialism, combined with the rush for cash crop exploitation exemplified in the theft of Coffee in 1616, has created a hole of poverty and marginalization that many black folks worldwide have yet to get out of.
The first African slaves were brought to Colombia...
On MLK, Coffee Shops, and Fannie Packs
“This problem of poverty,” Dr. King says, “is not only seen in the class division between the highly developed industrial nations and the so-called underdeveloped nations; it is seen in the great economic gaps within the rich nations themselves.”- MLK, Nobel Peace Prize lecture, December 11, 1964
My mother-in-law told me that some of the first sit-ins in Memphis were at coffee shops and diners like Woolworths. And she might know, considering her father was one of sanitation workers whose strike brought Dr. King's support to the city before his later assassination.
Honoring the legacy of MLK is...