Why Black Paris? — Because Black Minds Matter
In 2005 I taught a Campus Abroad in Paris for fifty students from California’s Silicon Valley. Ever since then, I’ve dreamed of turning those informal lectures into articles and books about how Americans in Paris Changed the World.
15 years, a dozen Paris research trips, and 1000 draft pages later, I’ve finally made a sudden, shocking, and utterly fantastic discovery: Based on audience applause, turns out those tired old gossip-laden tales about traditional white American icons such as Ben Franklin, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald are no longer really turning heads in print.
Instead the Paris stories Medium readers crave — the stories you’ve applauded most enthusiastically! — celebrate how Black Americans in Paris Changed the World. Because Black Minds Matter. And never more than now, in the unique and terrifying and perhaps truly pivotal historical moment in which we find ourselves.
Obsession Confession: I first published these stories about Black Americans as part of a larger project about Americans-in-Paris in general — and largely based on a purely private passion for personal spiritual inspiration. Honestly, I really did think these would be stories no one else wanted to read but me. And perhaps a few students and friends. But with a sense of self-indulgence I pushed “publish” anyway.
In retrospect, it’s easy to see why. Ten years ago the pop-culture energy in America was indeed far more firmly focused on White Paris nostalgia — and on pretty-in-pink, ma-vie-en-rose pastel portraits of what might cringingly be called White Paris Memories. Including such hit Hollywood films as Woody Allen’s comic Midnight in Paris, the rom-com film series Before Sunset, and Michelle Kidman’s torch-song-singing star-turn in Moulin Rouge.
Not many African Americans in those films, last time I looked.
Now in the 2020s our collective societal focus has changed. And for the better. So that secret inspiration I thought I’d sought out solely for myself suddenly turns out to be infectious. Just as it should be. And exactly as Medium readers by the hundreds have taught me — by means of your applause! In fact , the stories I’ve published about African Americans in Paris have remained the most popular of them all.
By contrast, facing up squarely to Frances’ own, quite-different version of institutional racism turns out to be nothing new. Back in 2005, the Place de la Bastille and Place de la République the streets of Paris had already erupted in full-scale protests over systematic racism and police brutality — just blocks from my little campus abroad classroom. And Parisian street protests (and the police brutality that fuels them) have continued down to this day — too often choked by teargas and shadowed by flames. Now in 2020, much as in our own American cities, the streets of Paris have been righteously filled with millions of #blacklivesmatter protestors in 2020. Exactly as Black Paris superstar James Baldwin once warned us they would be, half a century ago, in his book The Fire Next Time.
So here’s the new plan: my own 2020 vision for what might be called The Fire This Time has been to revisit and expand the best of those life stories— Baldwin’s included — and then add more. And more. And more. Doubtless certain faces and places may seem familiar: James Baldwin, Frederick Douglass and Josephine Baker have long been celebrated in American mainstream culture. And on both sides of the Atlantic. That said, many of my new life-stories I’ve presented here may well strike you as surprising. They sure did me! So read on.
Because thanks to the work of a whole new generation of scholars, the astounding achievements of African Americans in Paris such as Sally Hemings, Jim Jones, Alexandre Dumas or James Bullard have all been gloriously re-discovered. Often with award-winning, headline-grabbing results. To name just a few: Tom Reiss’s The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo won a Pulitzer Prize in 2013. Award-winning documentary film-maker Ken Burns turned Geoffrey C. Ward’s 2004 biography Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson into an equally unforgettable four-part PBS Series. And the list goes on. And on.
Similarly, legions of scholars have lavished renewed attention on gracefully-presented, highly-readable academic research projects. Let me recommend just a few! For example, I found William Shack’s Harlem in Montmarte: A Paris Jazz Story between the Wars (2001) and Tyler Stovall’s Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (2012) both enjoyable and enlightening. And humbling too.
Similarly, a whole raft of newly-published biographies focusing on Public Intellectuals such as Richard Wright or Angela Davis have gradually revolutionized our shared understanding of all that they suffered and savored in France. Even the once-familiar story of New York’s Statue of Liberty — born a Black woman in Paris!— has recently received a well-deserved, radical #blacklivesmatter make-over.
So although I myself can certainly make no claims to original scholarship, my role here instead feels strangely similar to that of an enthusiastic tour-guide or gallery docent in what could be, should be — perhaps someday will be? — the Medium wing of the Musée Dapper, or the Musée du quai Branly (to name just two museums that frequently feature the works of African and African American artists).
Eugene Bullard’s shocking adventures as a WWI airman, for example, were completely unknown to me until just a few short months ago — when I accidentally stumbled across a Medium story that made glancing reference to his achievements. Just click on the Black Paris logo on the top left corner of this page — next to the Medium “M” — for a full list of titles and topics.
Moving forward, I’d love to hear any suggestions or requests for future installments from you, too. Because hey, these stories can and will still grow and morph and evolve even further in the future. After all, that’s exactly what led me to share these pages and perspectives with you here in the first place. Because now more than ever, #blackmindsmatter — and can build a better world.
