Spirit of Black Paris

Beyond Black Paris

2012-02-10T16:39:00.000-05:00

In this special Black History Month series, I'm inviting you to venture beyond Black Paris and discover places where the Diaspora and France intersect.

Many of the African-American links to France are centred in Paris. We all know, however, that France was entangled in the Black Diaspora long before and during the time African Americans have benefited from the mythology of tolerance.

Today, there are many cities and towns around the country to experience African-American and Diaspora heritage sites and contemporary points of interest.

Some places have only recently begun to acknowledge and redress their involvement in slavery (Nantes, Bordeaux), some venerated the contribution of WWI & II soldiers (Normandy). In one, you'll find statue of the Senegalese infantrymen ( Mediterranean city of Frejus), in another, the museums to a great men of culture.

Alongside the Black connection, I'll give you some intriguing reasons to put these places on your itinerary.

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First in the spotlight

NANTES

Point of Interest: Abolition of Slavery Museum (description below) opening March 2012. The only one of its kind in France.

Connection: Nantes was the largest slave trade port in France (out of 17).

Facts: Between the 17^th and 19^th centuries, Nantes organized 43% of the French expeditions along the Slave Trade Triangle, carrying 450,000 slaves to the Caribbean colonies.
A city made wealthy by slave trade, some of homes and offices of the industry are still standing, so are the carved stone heads of Africans into buildings.

Fast Forward

The first international convention to study slavery was held in Nantes, in 1985. Out of that came the Association Shackles of Memory, an international non-profit which works in conjunction with the University of Nantes to educate through conferences and school programs. They give walking tours for all ages focusing on the city's slave trade history, abolition, and present day activities.

The memory-keepers are very active and vocal. Last May 10, 2011, to commemorate ten years since the passing of the Taubira Law that declared slavery a crime against humanity, a controversial re-enactment of slave and slave-masters was led through the streets of Nantes.

The ceremony was attended my Malcolm X's daughter. Also commenting was Deputy of Guyana Christiane Taubira, author of the 2001 Taubira Law. She emphasized that reviving the memory must go further - progress must continue in the education curriculum because it is education that will help understand and go beyond.

Here's the video, "Shocking Commemoration of Slavery in Nantes!" only available in French(1:40):

Key points:

- The re-enactment dramatizing a past the city wants to take responsibility for.

- Ten years after the declaration of slavery as a crime against humanity, the Association of 10 May wanted to strike hard at consciences.

- Malaak Shabbaz says, “It's about time to heal."

- Images of the memorial site under construction.

- Octave Cestor, Municipal Councillor for African Caribbean Relations: “These deported men, women and children who had no proper grave, now have a place of memory.”

Related Sites

Rings of Memory along the river

The Abolition of Slavery Memorial Museum opens in March 24, 2012. Free entrance.

On a replanted esplanade at the very spot where the slave ships used to berth, 2,000 commemorative glass plaques recall the slave trade expeditions that started from Nantes, as well as the major trading posts in Africa and in America. 1,710 of the plaques name the ships and dates of departure, 290 name the ports of call and sale in Africa, Antilles, Americas and Indian Ocean.

An open air stairway leads underground to the heart of the Memorial. First thing you'll see is the Declaration of Rights of Man and the word Freedom in 50 languages of countries affected by the slave trade. Once in the underground, to your left you'll glimpse the Loire River between the pillars on which are inscribed excerpts of texts from 5 continents over 5 centuries. To the west, historic and geographic texts and images place the Atlantic slave trade into context, balancing the weight of historic facts with the fight against servitude yesterday and today.

Visit Nantes

Geographic location: 2 hours west by train from Paris Montparnasse station; capital of the Pays de la Loire region in northwestern France. Situated on the banks of the Loire River, 34 miles (55 km) from the Atlantic Ocean.

Population: 800,000+

Its Vibe: voted one of the best places to live in France, appreciated by young professionals who love the arts but don't want to live in Paris.

What Else to Do

Carnaval de Nantes – April 1, 2012 – the second largest annual street fest in France (after Nice). Their specialty is giant performing marionettes, brainchild of the extraordinary home-grown, world renown street theatre group Royal de Luxe.

On the trail of Jules Verne – if you're a fan of the visionary author of 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea', visit his home and places that inspired him. Year-round guided tours.
Promenade Nantaise – get a panoramic view from the tower of the former LU biscuit factory now an eclectic arts centre + Turkish bath, stroll through the beautifully restored medieval Bouffay city centre, admire the superb gothic Saints Paul and Peter Cathedral, visit the Chateau of Dukes of Brittany which the city was built around.

Food Speciality: Nantes shortbread biscuits, Berlingot candies, galettes (crepes)

Regional wines: Muscadet

While You're in the Area

- If you drive, pass through the Loire Valley - the Valley of Kings - and spend a few hours marveling at the splendid Chenonceau, Chambord and other castles

- Mont St. Michel to the north

- Chic seaside resorts and spas on the Brittany coast: La Baule (great for celebrity spotting) and Dinard.

- St. Nazaire ship-building yards of the largest ocean liners, also a museum of historic liners.

Who Would've Guessed: there are 3 mosques in Nantes.

Twin Town/cooperative agreement with: Jacksonville, FL and Seattle, WA

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N E W S

A few months ago I became a Certified Agent for France designated by the France Tourism Development Agency.

This didn't exactly come out of the blue. I began visiting France in the early 80s as a flight attendant, lived in Provence as a mature student then as a full-fledged Paris resident. After 17 years of offering tours of Black Paris, I'm ready to share my appreciation of this rich country and get you connected with all that great food, gorgeous countryside, and some pretty cool surprises along the way.

How about joining me on a private bus excursion from Paris to visit Josephine Baker's chateau in the south and nearby Bordeaux?

I'll be escorting you on a wonderful journey to discover the region that Josephine fell in love with - it's the land of a thousand castles, of beautifully preserved medieval towns, of lively and laden open air markets. But you'll never forget stepping back into Baker's life and achievements.

Details:

- Private tour of Chateau des Milandes permanent exhibition of Josephine Baker's former home where she lived with her Rainbow Tribe family. Revel in the beautifully exhibited mementos, her recreated living spaces, and the extraordinary display of her private and public life.
- Explore Josephine Baker's Dordogne : Sarlat, outstanding medieval town renown for its sprawling Saturday market of world famous local products. Visit the nearby UNESCO World Heritage site of prehistoric cave drawings at Lascaux.
- Discover Bordeaux's famous vineyards, the city's rich architectural setting, fine gastronomy, and learn about its slave-ship history.

Departure from Paris: Thursday May 3
Return to Paris: Tuesday May 8
Your package includes:
- private bus to Dordogne and Bordeaux region
- 3-star hotels for 5 nights

- full day Bordeaux wine tour including tastings
- private tour of Josephine Baker's chateau
- breakfast daily
- all transfers, taxes, fees and service charge

Please contact
Julia Browne info@walkingthespirit.com for Further Details and Registration.

Deadline to Register: March 15.

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Stay tuned for our next Beyond Black Paris spotlight.... after our Valentine's Day Lovefest.

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How Did Jazz Become French, Anyway?

2011-07-15T00:03:00.002-05:00

Jazz at Juan-les-Pins

When I lived in Aix-en-Provence, we hopped from summer jazz fest to jazz fest all around the Provencal region and the South of France. I wasn’t a huge fan yet but the swaying, dancing all-ages crowd around me sure seemed to be. They were mouthing those lyrics and humming those tunes as if they’d grown up on the music.

In fact, most of them had. Across the country, radio stations had long been spinning homegrown jazz as often as American jazz – and their playlist lengthened every year.

Used to be, when jazz first shocked and entertained Paris out of its World War I doldrums, that Black-played jazz was considered the only real jazz. Boatloads of musicians hit the Normandy shores and took the train straight for Lower Montmartre, aka Black Montmartre. Club owners and club goers couldn’t get enough; the local musicians, however, weren’t thrilled to be pressured to learn this foreign American music.

And then there were the insightful fans who saw the future of French music in jazz and began the quest of elevating this American ‘pop’ music to an art form. The Jazz Hot Club, formed by Hughes Panassié and Charles Delauney , launched the first Jazz Magazine in Europe from their locale near Rue Pigalle. Here, eager young people could come try out the new sounds, meet the Americans, and gain confidence. Then, two of their protégés formed the first real French jazz band. Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli and their Jazz Hot Quintet toured the region in the 30s, spreading the jazz gospel.

But the occupation of Paris by the Nazis sent Americans back stateside and outlawed so-called degenerate Negro music on the airwaves and in public places.

"The fervent fans simply took their old New Orleans-style records down to the soundproof, underground cellar clubs of St.Germain-des-Pres and the Latin Quarter."

With no Americans around to show them the chops, and no new records being pressed and distributed, the young French resorted to imitating Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway.

One particularly avid fan was Claude Luter, who formed a band reproducing the sounds of his idol, Sidney Bechet. By 1946, Les Lorientais were considered the best live jazz band, drawing crowds, known as Les Rats de Cave, to their hot, sweaty cellar club near Rue du Vieux-Colombier (6^th district).

The Soundtrack of St.Germain-des-Pres

Like in the 20s, jazz was the music of the French youth. Thousands of them flocked to the St.Germain-des-Pres and Latin Quarter from their native provinces, creating a veritable revolution. They gathered by day in the smoky literary cafés – The Flore, Les Deux Magots, bickering over existentialism with their philosopher king Jean Paul Sartre, lunched at Bart’s on Rue Jacob, then around midnight headed for the jazz mecca.

Among them was a lanky, balding, ambitious engineer, writer and poet Boris Vian. His nickname became The White Negro for his obsession with Black music and culture. Not surprising he was the one, in April 1947, to open the most infamous of the area’s clubs – The Tabou Club. The same kids who haunted the literary cafes by day, descended treacherous low-ceiling stone stairways into the smoky, damp, joyous cellars to boogey-woogey 'til the wee hours. Decked out in black market American jeans and plaid shirts bought off the GIs, they swung to the same well-scratched records, or to Vian’s old piano or his ever-present trumpet and house band.

For the rebellious young, jazz was more than about music. At first it was their tool to rebel against the Nazi edict. It composed the soundtrack of their generation. And, by embracing Black American culture they felt they were proving themselves bigger than the American racism.

Return of the Masters

Boris Vian and Miles Davis

Then the Americans started returning to Paris after the war, looking to take up the glory where their 1920s predecessors had left off. The fledgling French jazz bands didn’t deny the American superiority, they paid their respects to the greats like Dizzy Gillespie who played Paris’ first International Jazz Festival in May 1948 held at the Salle Pleyel.

They plunked down their francs for festivals featuring Max Roach, Charlie Parker, Lips Page, Buck Clayton, Kenney Clark, Coleman Hawkins and countless others. Parisian jazz fans stormed Vian’s next and just as famous club, Le Club Saint-Germain on Rue St. Benoit, blocking the narrow street by the hundreds, elbowing their way in to see Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Sidney Bechet up close.

But they longed for the recognition that would convince the American musicians to play alongside the French.

Bechet was the first to break the barrier, in 1949, joining forces with Claude Luter’s band. Bechet genuinely liked this fledgling French jazz, and they loved his talent for melodies that mixed European quadrilles with traditional jazz.

What also divided the French jazz fan world was the appearance of the new generation of jazz stars – the Beboppers.
If they couldn’t get in to the shows, they could hang around Hotel Louisiane on Rue de Seine until Bud Powell or Miles Davis and their friends emerged from their headquarters/rooming house.

Clubs like Le Caveau de la Huchette stuck with New Orleans style (to this day), while others embraced the smaller formations of Bebop.

By the 1960s, the French musicians felt they’d earned their stripes and their fair share of club dates. A law, similar to one of the 1920s, limited the number of American-only bands played per night in the various venues.

These days, French jazz bands are plentiful; mixed French and Black bands are common.

Back In The Day...

A few background facts :

The jazz club, Chez Inez, opened 1949 by Inez Cavanaugh and located on rue Champollion, near the Sorbonne. The venue’s specialty was fried chicken and jazz. Pianist Art Simmons got his Paris start here. Cavanaugh had managed Duke Ellington, married Danish baron and noted jazz critic Timme Rosencrantz.

The most well-known existing jazz club from post-war Paris is Caveau de la Huchette which opened in 1945. One American GI recalls using an army jeep to drive from Antwerp to Paris and finding the Caveau de la Huchette within two hours of his arrival. It was filled with soldiers, mostly Afro-American.

Its specialty was, given the late arrival of bebop to the capital, Dixieland jazz although Art Blakely and his Jazz Messengers played in 1972. Bechet and Armstrong played shows here in the 50s.

On Rue de Sommerand, also near the Sorbonne, the Chez Moune nightclub was opened in ’48 by French West-Indian Moune de Rivel. Aaron Bridgers (a disciple of Art Tatum, and who accompanied singers such as Inez Cavanaugh and Muriel Gaines) started his Paris career here. As did Gordon Heath who began as a singer and player of folk guitar before opening his open club Cabaret de l’Abbaye near Rue Saint-Benoit in the 6^th.

One of first ‘Saint-Germain-des-Pres’ type jazz club was La Rose Rouge in 1948. Located on Rue de Rennes, it was run by African dancer Feral Benga and Greek-Ethiopian Nikos Papadakis. On the program were professional musicians and dancers (Maya Angelou sang in the 50s, Billie Holiday headlined in 1958).

Between 1947-9, Chez Honey was an African-American club gallery, near Montparnasse. Painter Herbert Gentry displayed works of young artists but also ran one of the first post-war jazz cafes. His wife Holly Johnson sang and Art Simmons played the piano. Many musicians performed here – Zoot Sims, Don Byas, Kenny Clarke, and James Moody often played with French musicians like Pierre Michelot. Duke Ellington played here. Singers included Jimmy Davis, Lena Horne, Moune de Rivel, and the Peters Sisters sang. Also: here in 1947 Kenny Clarke’s ‘Epistrophy’ became the first ‘bop’ record cut in France.

Poster from Jazz A La Villette 2011

Upcoming Jazz Festival
JAZZ A LA VILLETTE - August 31 - Sept 11, 2011
It's big, it's bold, and it gets cooler every year! This year's theme is: When Jazz Meets Funk & Hip Hop.

On the programme: Archie Shepp, Roy Hargrove, Maceo Parker plus Meshell Ndegeocello reinventing Prince's most controversial songs. Uh-huh!
Also nostalgic movies - Stormy Weather, Glory, Jungle Fever, Jazz Singer, even Gone With The Wind.
Plus a kid's programme.
See the full list and details here

Love Letters for Paris & France

2011-02-14T20:25:00.003-05:00

For 200 years Paris has held a special home in the heart of African Americans. Long before the sheer beauty of the place takes hold, there are expectations. Black history is chock full of alluring, mythical stories from Paris and France - longstanding acceptance and deep appreciation of Black culture, to start. Then what comes after the first coup de foudre? Some of us know the love affair never ends. At some point though, for those who linger, eventually new understanding sets in.

I've gathered here a few reflections from writers, artists, abolitionists, poets and intellectuals. Their eye-opening moments transformed a sojourn into an important point of evolution. Whether folks looked to Paris as a place to soothe old hurts, to delight a grumbly heart, or simply to learn something about oneself, it seems that it came down / comes down to looking for love of some kind. Paris, on vous aime!

Lois Mailou Jones

Lois (Mailou) Jones, artist, future long-time teacher at Howard University :

“France gave me my stability, and it gave me the assurance that I was talented in that I should have a successful career. [Also] I remember that I had the most wonderful studio. The American University found it for me… it looked out over the city towards the Tour Eiffel. It had a loft and it had a roof garden. It was really paradise working in that studio of my dreams."

From an interview with Charles H. Rowell for Callaloo.

William Wells Brown, visiting in 1849 as a fugitive slave, a militant abolitionist, and as delegate to the Peace Congress:

"All Paris appeared to be on the Boulevards and looking as if the great end to life was enjoyment."

From Sketches.

James Weldon Johnson, 1905:

"From the day I set foot in France I became aware of the working of a miracle within me. I was free from special scorn, special tolerance, special condescension... free to be merely a man."

Frederick Douglass, 1859:

“To think that I, once a slave on the Eastern shore of Maryland was experiencing all this… Now I was enjoying what the wisest and best of the world have bestowed for the wisest and the best to enjoy.”

From The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.

Henry O.Tanner

Painter Henry O.Tanner, arrived in 1891. A former Sunday School superintendent and advocate for temperance, he was constantly surprised by cultural differences and wary of being seduced by French customs:

“But primarily, I was really afraid… I might grow to like it, that there might be lurkng somewhere within me an appetite which, once awakened, I could not control.”

From The Story of an Artist’s Life, H.O.Tanner.

Langston Hughes, romanticized his rooms near Place Clichy where he landed in 1924:

“The room was right out of a book and I began to say to myself I guess dreams do come true … Because here I am, living in a Paris garret, writing poems and having champagne for breakfast (because champagne is what we had with our breakfast at the Grand Duc from the half-empty bottles left by unsuspecting guests.

From The Big Sea, 1940.

This particular apartment was the upside of Hughes' first years in Paris; the downside being his financial hardships and the xenophobia he experienced while competing for scarce jobs.

Jessie Fauset, a Phi Beta Kappa scholar and graduate of Cornell, former teacher of Latin and French, literary editor for Crisis:

“[It’s] lovely just to be oneself and not bothering about color or prejudice,” but noted that her writing might be suffering from such freedom, “I think strangely that’s why my book progresses so slowly, because I am away from the pressure."

From Noblesse Oblige.

Countee Cullen, poet, champion of all things French. More than other expatriate during the Harlem Renaissance, he explored Diaspora Paris and came up against surprising results:

“As an American Negro we are somewhat startled to find that our dark complexion avails us nought among these kindredly tinted people. Language must be the open sesame here, and it must be French.”

From Opportunity, September 1928.

Horace Cayton, psychologist and sociologist, wrote in his 1960s autobiography ‘Long Old Road’ of his trip in spring 1936:

“I walked down rue de la Paix to the Madeleine and then down into the magnificent Place de la Concorde where I turned up the Champs-Elysées. It was early evening and the air was soft and balmy. Crowds of people were sitting in the numerous cafés on either side of the wide street. I was just one of a crowd. I felt free and happy as I had never remembered feeling in the United States.

Ralph Ellison first heard stories of France brought back from WWI by his favorite cousin. Later he read French literature, and visited French battlefields after D Day. Writing to Richard Wright:

“I saw the bombed buildings… even the negative symbols contain enough of their lost vitality to make one regret he failed to get there sooner. Certainly, it provided me a new perspective through which to look upon the U.S. and brother, the view is frightful.”

Chester Himes was ambivalent about his stay in France but acknowledged its contribution to his success:

"In Paris, I found many ways to feed myself without disastrous effects. I gathered throwaway scraps in the markets, old bread, stale wine, and hotel proprietors let me live in rooms until I could afford to pay. France did not support me; it let me live and grow strong enough to concentrate on my work, which was writing … I became famous.”

As told to author Michel Fabre, 1978.

Hazel Scott, the famed pianist arrived at the end of the 50s for a 3-week vacation and stretched it into a 3-year stay:

“I’m not going to say that France is paradise, but I will say this: you can live anywhere if you’ve got the money to live. You can go anywhere if you’ve got the money to go and whomever you marry or date is your business.”

What Paris Means To Me, Negro Digest 1961.

Surrealist poet Ted Joans wrote this tribute to his idol poet André Breton:

“How can I thank you for the exquisite encounter
On rue Bonaparte in Paris (June 1960)
Of a giant in grey and an Afro American sunbeam.

From Spetrophilia, 1966.

Richard Wright:

How calm I've felt here in Paris! No more of that tension that grips so hard ... I walk down a street and feel my legs swinging free."

From his journal, 1947.

James Baldwin, through a fictional character in This Morning, This Evening, So Soon:

"But I could not hate the French, because they left me alone. I will always love [Paris]; it is the city that saved my life ... by allowing me to find out who I am."

So what about you?

What's your love story with Paris?

During my first trips to Paris (I was a flight attendant) I was less than impressed. The city tried to charm me but I finally swooned at my first crossing of the Pont Neuf. It was a foggy November morning, best spent in the Louvre, where I was headed. I just stopped dead, peered through the haze, felt - rather than saw - the Conciergerie and the lamp posts reaching out to me; I heaved a sigh and that was that. That was 1982. Like a marriage worth its salt, we've had our falling-outs, but as you can see, I just can't leave it alone.

Show & Tell on the Champs-Elysées

2010-12-22T01:09:00.000-05:00

This question comes up often on tours – how are African Americans viewed and treated differently in Paris than Africans? Would you be surprised if I told you part of the answer reveals itself on the Champs-Elysées?

In the Holiday season, the Champs-Elysées truly earns its crown of most beautiful street in the world. Thousands of lights are strung like snowflakes in the trees, ground level is dazzling with Christmas Market baubles and Ice Sculptures. The last thing anyone’s thinking about is what a glorious arena this grand avenue has been for displaying Paris’ appreciation of African American culture. And even further from the mind, recalling how it has recently been the ground of contention in France-Africa relations.

Here's the recurring scene: every Bastille Day on the majestic Champs-Elysées, the rain-proof stadium is set up, the tricolor flag flutters, and military bands march in parade in front of the president.

On more occasions that most people realize, an impressive number of African Americans of unrivaled merit have been invited to parade. And fittingly so; the name of this grand avenue originates from the Greek mythological Elysian Fields where heroes and virtuous souls rest after death.

Imagine the unbelievable pride of the 369^th Harlem Infantry and other segregated Regiments, decorated with their Croix de Guerre, waving back at the grateful crowds that surged onto the street to greet them. This was 1919; the soldiers had helped liberate small towns in France, they’d kept their heads and hearts when all around them were losing theirs, they’d proven the inferiority label wrong.

Lighting The Flame

Eugene Bullard

A few years earlier, the US Air Force hadn't considered Eugene Bullard worthy of manning its planes. Georgia-born Bullard up and earned his wings in 1916 through the Foreign Legion flying Fokker Triplanes and a Pfalz D III and became the only African American pilot in WWI. The French showered this trailblazer with honors. One of the most powerful took place at the western-most entry to the Champs-E. Under the Arch of Triumph in 1954, General de Gaulle asked Bullard to rekindle the Flame to the Unknown Soldier.

Another Legion of Honor inductee, Josephine Baker, made this swanky street her own. Her feisty, sexy debut at the nearby Théatre des Champs Elysées took the collective breath away. Then all frivolity behind her, down this same fashionable street she marched in 1969 alongside De Gaulle supporters. To complete the picture, the site of her thousands-strong funeral was held a block north of the Champs, at the Madeleine Church.

It's pretty well certain that someone like Josephine 'Queen of Parisian Nights' wasn't quite who France's Queen Marie of Medici had in mind in the 17th century when she planned to turn this farmland on the outskirts of the city into The Queen's Court, later known as the Champs-Elysees.

Miss Sally Hemings started her own dynasty in the shadows of this street, in the shadows of society. She arrived in 1787 as a slave to Ambassador Thomas Jefferson’s family at their residence at the corner of Rue Berri. Thanks to French law, though, she was considered just another free servant of color. Less than a year before the Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood creed of the French Revolution was cast in stone, Miss Sally was said to have conceived the first of the contested Hemings-Jefferson clan here, and soon after hammered out her own declaration of independence for her children.


Meta Vaux Warrick

Le Petit Palais

From revolution in deed to evolution in perception, look no further than a few steps south of the avenue to the Grand and Petit Palais museums, both constructed for the 1900 Universal Exposition. Here, amid all the beau monde, W.E.B. Dubois exhibited highly unusual photos of Black Americans. Streams of ticket-holders came expecting to commiserate with images of downtrodden, poverty-stricken, ragged former slaves but Du Bois’ fine displays of Black America’s prosperous middle and upper class left them with new food for thought. Since then, those same museums have featured a veritable parade of fine, progressive art that was getting little respect back home: Henry O. Tanner, Meta Vaux Warrick, Daniel Warburg, Annie E. Walker, Elizabeth Prophet, Palmer Hayden, William Edward Scott, Lois Mailou Jones.

More recently, post-modern France chose opera
singer Jessye Norman to belt out their national anthem "La Marseillaise" during their Champs-Elysées blowout parade for the 200^th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. In the same event, William Foster’s Marching 100 from Florida’s A&M was honored as the only band to represent the U.S. during that 1989 Bastille Day parade. This clip of the performance sings like a Hymn To Joy.

(N.B. Foster passed away Aug 20, 2010).

So when do the Africans enter Champs-Elysées history? Let’s fast forward to the Bastille Day 2010 military parade. This one’s got controversy stamped all over it.

For the first time in the parade’s history, troops from 13 former African colonies were invited to march infront of the presidential gathering (only Ivory Coast refused). Yet the courage and exploits of the Senegalese Regiment has been the stuff of legend for 150 years, so why now? To mark the 50^th anniversary of the independence of African nations, and yes, finally to honor the soldiers.

Veterans attending the 2010 parade

The Amazones of Benin

Malian soldiers

From Gabon

From Republic of Central Africa

While few may have questioned the African American presence over the century, a national debate ignited over the African appearance. Some saw the parading soldiers as inappropriate and outdated nostalgia for paternalistic colonial times. Others were outraged at the presence of what they called criminals among the invited contingent. And here’s where our Diaspora history defines our relationship with the French. There hasn't been a high cost politically, socially or morally for France to welcome and be enriched by African Americans.

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And now for something completely different:

Follow up on the Richard Wright 50th Anniversary Commemoration Collage. I'm working on it and plan to have it complete early in the new year. Thank you all for your contributions!

There's more to be done, however!

If you were one of the countless who have searched up the stairs, under the stairs, scanned hundreds of markers to find Wright's, we can put an end to this. To get his name inscribed in the cemetery's guide, the Administration of the Père Lachaise cemetery has to receive a certain quantity of letters requesting his inclusion.

Julia Wright, the author's daughter, is calling on everyone to write a brief letter ( name, address, profession) expressing your wish to see Richard Wright's name added to the list of the personalities in the guide.
Send to:

Madame La Conservatrice

Cimetière du Père Lachaise

16 Rue du Repos

75019 Paris, France

Julia has asked for copies of all letters to be sent to her either by email at richardwrightcentennial.jw@gmail.com or at her address Julia Wright 92 Rue de Lourmel, 75015 Paris France to make sure the integrity and numbers of the file of letters is protected.

Thanks for your continued support.

Care for a French Treat?

Let me offer you a taste of Holidays in Provence. I have parents-in-law there and spent some of my most memorable Christmases circling the ever full table. One of the delectable traditions in the land of the mean Mistral wind is ending the Christmas meal with 13 dessert items! At any given moment I would be nibbling at walnuts, quince cheese, almonds, raisins, teeth-breaker biscuits, Calisson from Aix-en-Provence (candy pebbles with a thick padding of almond and fruit paste sandwiched between a delicious crust of smooth white confectioners sugar), white nougat, black nougat with honey, apple, pear, orange, winter melon and fougasse (Provencal bread). All is left on the table and eaten over three days.

You'd also be eating this:

Buche de Noel (kind of Christmas cake)

Enjoy! Have a Wonderful Holiday and a Brilliant Start to the New Year!

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Bricktop - A Black Woman Takes Paris On Her Terms

2010-09-08T11:12:00.002-05:00

Although my Walking The Spirit Tours of Black Paris have been introducing travelers and Parisians to African-American history for 16 years, I still get a thrill discovering new tidbits to share as food for thought.

Lately it's the fire of Bricktop that has me lit up. She was a hostess extraordinaire who ran the best nightclubs in Roaring 20s Paris. If you don't already know of her, let me introduce you to Miss Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Smith, aka Bricktop.

Said this fiery redhead from Virginia: 'I'm not a singer, I'm not a dancer; I'm a performer and a saloon-keeper'. Hearing that, you just know she was destined to drop a bomb on the decadent Paris scene. That is, once she got past the classic Paris trip-up: reality check of expectations vs what Paris feels like offering up.

At Le Grand Duc

How would you react if you had seasoned your act in the swankiest Chicago and New clubs, then Paris beckoned so you set sail only to find yourself gaping at your new place of employment that fit precisely 12 tables and a minuscule bar.
Exactly.

Of small comfort, a 22-year old Langston Hughes offered the entertainer a hanky to dry her tears and some refreshments from the kitchen at Le Grand Duc where they both now worked. Revitalized, she got up and put her saloon-keeping skills to work with entrepreneur and employer, aviator Eugene Bullard. Together they turned that little dive into the hotspot for jet-setting celebrities in Lower Montmartre.

A year and a half later, the shrewd but oh so classy Bricktop opened her own namesake club directly across the street. As hostess to royalty and writers, to movie stars and homies, she became both the spark and the cultivator of change.

It's well-documented gossip that F.Scott Fitzgerald and Cole Porter fought over her on that corner of Rue Pigalle and Rue Fontaine in the heart of Black Montmartre; out of their boyish one-upmanship came the classic tune 'Miss Otis Regrets'.

Away from judgmental eyes, she agreed to teach the Prince of Wales to swing his behind to the latest dance 'Black Bottom'. At the bar, Black and white Americans rubbed elbows without friction, taking in the latest records from home. And somewhere in that maddening, jubilant crowd, two fresh-faced local musicians listened with their whole spirit. Then a certain Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli went home and worked their guitar and violin until they formed France's first professional jazz band.

View from Black Montmartre - Rue Fontaine

Beyond the expat-makes-good story, what piques my curiosity is Bricktop's personal politics - the decisions she made as an influential woman. Though kept very private, her love life provokes reflection on the real values of the day and on our assumptions. One might assume that, surrounded as she was by powerful and accomplished men, in freewheeling Paris no less, that she just might slip into the obvious. Well, not for this equally powerful and accomplished Black woman! Her rule number one - never mix business with pleasure.

Then she wondered aloud what a successful African American woman would want with a white man, even if he was her manager. She herself married a Brother saxophonist, Peter Duconge, in 1929 but my question branches from her puzzlement. Lower Montmartre of the 20s attracted an international mix of party-goers so crossing the color line wouldn't raise an eyebrow.

Picasso hung out at Bricktop's.

We've heard much about the male expats who married European women
but rarely, (Josephine excepted), the other way around in that time period - up to the 1950s. Was it because the Black community was so fervent and prosperous that the French offered no tangible benefits for a woman? Did the close knit community effectively satisfy that yearning to belong within the foreign culture? Despite France's reputed racial tolerance, did any of the women really consider staying and integrating? Bricktop was half black, half freckled Irish so it could be simply that she chose sides early on and was sticking to it when it came time for the ultimate commitment.

How Black women's experiences in Paris have branched out since the 60s! The homey inclusion of Black Montmartre of the 20s has never been recreated. Compared to the legions of Black men, the trickle of African American women relocating and staying has slowly grown. But without a visible community to soft land into, it's easy to start making a life among the French and disappear into the fabric of Gallic society. Black women who have lived or live in Paris know more than a handful of us who are navigating our adopted land as mothers, wives or significant others, career builders, cultural interpreters, and passers-on of our Black and American culture. We're carrying on what Bricktop and her colleagues started, on a less flamboyant but just as influential level.

Any thoughts out there?

Jazz and its Homestyle 'Hood

Jazz à La Villette is summer's last hurrah of festivals. Running August 31 through Sept 12, this jazz tribute brings onstage their signature creative mix of jazz, hip hop and soul. Closing night rings out with a shout out to the Black Panthers called 'Tongues on Fire' by The Roots, The Last Poets and David Murray.

Preparing the terrain since the summer, the MK2 movie theater along the quays of the 19th district lined up an exciting selection of iconic Black films all summer.

What's also great about attending this festival is the opportunity to hang out in the cosmopolitan neighborhood that surrounds La Villette and stretches alongside the waterfront. Paris doesn't get much more unselfconsciously diverse than up here in this part of the north east, the 19th district.

For example, you'll find an African restaurant next to a Breton creperie both facing a neighbor-tended garden which is traversed by Jews on their way to the nearby synagogue.

Along the canal on a fine day, young people and families spread blankets and dawdle over picnic or take-out lunch, kids tear up the crushed gravel playgrounds, table-tennis players battle it out....

While planning your next trip to Paris, book one of the architecturally- interesting Holiday Inns that overlook the quais, and plan to get to know this homestyle Paris (between metros Jaurès to Porte de Pantin). One of the lures - the best Sicilian pizzeria in town is at metro Laumière.

And to butter up that mood, I'm inviting you to tune into the internet broadcast of one of the jazz festival's sponsors - Fip jazz radio. Part of the Radio France family, Fip keeps me and my work humming along to the most surprising mix of music genres - lots of jazz, yes, including live concerts taped in their studios. Also rare and favorite African artists, plus other international talents including American rock, British edge and good old classical. Tune in anytime by hitting the 'ecouter' arrow - great chance to practice your French by listening to the signature purr of the female djs. There's some vintage Quincy Jones streaming through as I write this...

Goodbye Haynes, Hello Again Miles

2009-12-04T15:18:00.003-05:00

Paris has lost its first and its last African-American landmark. When GI Leroy Haynes and his French wife opened a soul food restaurant in 1949, it was a lifesaver for Black GIs hankering for some homestyle fatback and sausages. In the 50s and 60s, within its pale yellow walls it gathered together the famous – Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison; the stars – Elizabeth Taylor, Brigitte Bardot; and the locals. And right up until its closing in April 2009, visitors to Paris came looking to sample that last taste of African-American history in Paris.

Were you one of many who had your picture taken outside against its odd log cabin exterior on narrow rue Clauzel in the 9^th district? Or could be you gawked at the glamorous gallery of autographed photos that decorated every inch of the inside. Or if you were lucky, you got a glimpse an original Beauford Delaney painting of James Baldwin that used to hang above the hallway to the kitchen.

Memphis Slim Marianne Faithfull Cab Calloway

With its closing, we’ve lost a real brick and mortar place where you could plant your feet and say: this was created by a Black American in this cosmopolitan city. It outlived any other African-American owned businesses that followed. What we’ve lost also is a concrete I-can-touch-it sense of continuation. Its location in Lower Montmartre dovetailed neatly into history already engraved in this area by Bricktop, Eugene Bullard, Sidney Bechet and Josephine Baker during the 1920s & 30s. After the numerous black-run/owned clubs shut their doors in the face of Nazi occupation, GI Haynes returned and planted the flag for African-American culture once again.

It wasn’t the only place to get authentic soul food in Paris. Anybody still smacking their lips over the ribs at Randy & Jays Rib Joint from the mid-1990s? And more recently, Percy’s Place, in the bourgeois 16^th district served up a refined blend of soul and French cuisine (as did Chez Josephine in 1927).

For those of us in the tourism biz, it’s sad not to guide visitors down the street and say voila, we’re still here. That said, since manager Benny Luke left the house around 2000, the spirit has been fading. Haynes’ 3^rd wife, Maria Dos Santos, did make an effort to keep the black focus but in the end, even adopting the trendy Brazilian theme couldn’t keep the pots on the stoves, nor the bottoms in the chairs.

A bit of history on Haynes: Kentucky-born GI, Leroy Howard Milton Haynes, and his French wife, Gabby, opened Gabby & Haynes in 1949 on rue Manuel, just off rue des Martyrs. Although the relationship and partnership broke up in 1960, Gabby and their son Richard continued offering tradition cuisine.

Then in 1964, a stone’s throw on the other side of rue des Martyrs, Morehouse grad Leroy H. opened his own Chez Haynes. How popular was he? Years ago, I came across some wonderful news footage in the archives of French Television where the journalist literally drooled over Haynes’ exotic food prep. By then bon vivant Haynes was also known for his small parts in French movies. His celebrity status and his big laugh had them lined up at the bar waiting for a coveted place at the table. But he was just plain comfort to Americans. Louis Armstrong himself once left his own concert early to scoot over where a plate of red beans and rice were waiting for him.

If you’ve got stories to share about your own experiences at Chez Haynes, we’d love to hear them.

Otherwise, grab a hankie and enjoy these great nostalgic pictures graciously made accessible by journalist Jean Segura. http://www.ruedescollectionneurs.com/magazine/mag/haynes.php

Bonjour Marie

On the breakthrough front, I am the repeater of oldish but still hot news. The first black woman has strutted off with

France

’s most prestigious literary prize. Marie N’Diaye took the Prix Goncourt for ‘Trois Femmes Puissantes’ (Three Powerful Women). It’s the story of three women: Nora, Fanta and Khady Dembe (French and African) saying "non" to the little and big indignities that life throws at them.

Background: Miss N’Diaye was born of a Senegalese father and French mother in Pithiviers, France in 1967. One interviewer marvels at how shy she is – 'she actually waits her turn to speak during round-tables and conferences'. On the other hand, her criticism of Sarkozy’s colder, less gentler France brought on the bile of a centre-right deputy who tersely reminded Miss N’Diaye that such an honor carries a ‘duty of restraint’ and Mlle should show some respect for French institutions. Into the storm weighed the French minister of culture, as did many others, retorting that Goncourt prize winners could d*m* well say what they want.

And she’s been saying it through 12 novels and short stories, six plays (at least one has entered the hallowed repertoire of the Comedie Francaise), and 3 young adult books. This isn’t her first crowning either – she was awarded the Prix Femina in 2001. Catch a glimpse of her Sade-esque pose on her publisher’s (Gallimard) site.

As an aside, it was Gallimard who gave Chester Himes his first literary break in France. Result: the 1958 Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere for his ‘For The Love of Imabelle’ aka the movie 'A Rage in Harlem'.

Hello Again Miles

If you’re in Paris before January 17^th, jump on the #5 metro train to the north east end of Paris, to catch the amazing We Want Miles exhibition. The Cité de la Musique leaves no corner of a musician’s life out of spotlight in their shows. I saw the exhibition on Jimmy Hendrix and it was obsessively complete and very tender. Miles' promises to be even more heartfelt, and a total immersion into his music. He was a god in the streets of St.Germain-des-Pres. He formed one of Paris’ ‘it’ couples with icon Juliette Greco.

Come and feel the love.

Website: http://www.cite-musique.fr/anglais/Default.aspx for a short video on the exhibition

And read the interview with the exhibitors on All About Jazz http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=46324

Travel with us! Here's your chance to visit Josephine Baker's chateau. Join Walking The Spirit Tours and Colesville Travel for an unforgettable 10 days enjoying the best of Black Paris, world famous wine region of Burgundy, and the former home, now an awe-inspiring exhibition, of La Venus Noire. All the delicious details here.

Richard Wright's Normandy & Black Montmartre

2009-08-14T12:53:00.014-05:00

It's August, let's do like the French and take a little vacation from Paris.

You may already know that Richard Wright kept a charming little farmhouse in nearby Normandy - and it's great to get proof that it's still standing. One of our tour participants followed this particular trail of Black history outside Paris and came back thrilled. After a quick half-hour train trip from Paris, they were met in the tiny quaint village by a very hospitable young driver/guide. Alexandre had helped me find and make arrangements for them to visit Wright’s old farmhouse. The guardian of the place, Mr. Heloin, was an old acquaintance of the Wright family and took great pleasure showing our American travelers around the farmhouse and regaling them with stories, translated loosely by their guide. Wright loved the country life. You may have heard the story of him bringing his prized farm-grown potatoes back to Paris and handing out baskets of them to his friends at the Café Tournon. No potatoes during this 2009 visit, but our travelers got their fill of delicious cherries, straight off the tree.

Following Wright’s footsteps then led to the artist colony where he composed his

haiku at the end of the 50s. It’s still a gorgeous bucolic retreat built around an 11^th century mill. Goats roam the grounds, a serene river flows nearby… what more could the writers, artists and musicians who spend a week or a month here need to create? Not much, if you read the haiku that blossomed from Wright’s imagination, penned in his own little room at the end a row of cottages.

The owner, Ms. Lipinska, is a lovely woman – the same one who had originally invited Wright to make this his home away from home. And the same who graciously hosted the Mississippi TV crew I was part of back in '94 when Madison Lacy was filming Black Boy. Over a fine dinner of homemade lasagna, Ms. Lipinska enchanted our travelers with more memories of Richard Wright and the impressive list of artists who have taken up residency there. She even showed the letter Wright had written her after his stay.

It’s not much of a stretch to imagine Wright relaxed and flexing his creative muscles in this retreat far from the maddening throngs of Paris.

(Thanks Angela for your story!)

It was hot, hot, hot in Black Montmartre

Back to Paris, now, to the Roaring '20s when there was no hotter place for Black culture outside of Harlem than on the lower slopes of Montmartre. In fact, the vibrancy and influence of the post-war Black Paris community has never been equaled.

Alberta Hunter & Florence Mills

Imagine it’s around 1925. You stumble out for your morning paper and saxophonist/clarinetist Sidney Bechet ambles by, on his way home from playing at Bricktop’s legendary club. Or, after a work-out session at the gym run by Foreign Legion aviator Eugene Bullard, you down a quick and copious meal made cheaper by the mighty American dollar. As night falls, you put on your duds and head out to make the rounds of the many clubs where fellow African-Americans rake in more money than French musicians.

Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson

Had you been there, you’d have crossed the path of a young Langston Hughes working on his jazz poetry, or reserved a table at Josephine B’s chic but not cheap Chez Josephine restaurant. You might have had your suits made by R.D. Miller, a brother’s shop just down the street from the Moulin Rouge.

Of course by now you want to know and see more, right? Set your DVD recorders or VCRs for August 26^th : PBS will be broadcasting the much-anticipated documentary ‘Harlem in Montmartre’. The film covers jazz in Paris from 1920-45. Not only will it delve into the revolutionary African-American experience there, but it will pick at that burning question: how did African-American music become French?? As a primer, here are a couple of key players: the Depression, a protectionist law that limited foreigners playing in clubs, two fresh-faced musicians - Stephane Grapelli and Django Reinhardt - trying their hand at the totally new phrasing and style they'd been listening to at Bricktop's, and, of course, World War II & the Nazis.

The documentary is the fine work of Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Dante James (series producer of Slavery and the Making of America). You can read Kam Williams’ interview with him here.

Where Our Expatriates are Buried.

2008-11-30T23:20:00.010-05:00

There's no denying the kinship and inspiration that comes when you can touch the door, sit in the café, or gaze up at a Parisian window where one of our African-American expatriates spent significant time. But there's nothing that brings an abrupt pause like coming upon the final resting place.

Three major Paris-based Black writers died during the month of November - Richard Wright, Chester Himes and James Baldwin. If you plan to add a visit to their graveside to your European itinerary, be prepared to travel to cities that evoked in them a deep personal attachment.

For Richard Wright, that was Paris, of course. He died on November 28, 1960 and is cremated and interred at the world's most famous cemetery, Père Lachaise.

Located in Paris' north-end 20^th district, from the outside, its high stone wall hides all but the tallest monuments and crosses. But once through the portal, it's hello wonderment of sculpture/grave sites and winding passages, shaded by robust autumn trees. In here, moss grows over angel's wings, stained glass gets broken, and despite a map in hand, you can get lost or distracted in about 3 minutes flat.

On a day too fine to be October, a small group of us went looking for Richard. He was a brilliant star in the firmament of literature and Franco-American politics, but in this cemetery, he lays cheek-to-jowl with the unknowns and the famous (Oscar Wilde, Stephane Grapelli, Jim Morrison, Sarah Bernhardt, Frederic Chopin, Molière, and Proust, to name a few).

The map said the Columbarium was north and west, in section 87. So we headed uphill, thin-soled shoes bending to the humps of cobblestone. And up, and up, trying to follow the various alley names.

And we took shortcuts, hopping down precarious gaps between sepulchers, peeking in broken tombs, and finally, made it.

Then the real work began. The Columbarium forms a u-shape of some hundreds of wall plaques, laid out in a grid on two levels. After fifteen minutes of reading each one, we found out from information services that we should have picked up the other map at the main entrance - the one marking the precise numbered niche where our Richard lay. Nothing to do but keep scanning. "It lies in a corner, under the stairs," are the last words of Madison Lacy's moving documentary 'Black Boy'. And sure enough, someone finally hollered out victory. And there it was:

Must see: see the link* below to view Julia Wright's tribute and reading beside her father's grave site, as featured on the blog of Kaleem Ashraf, PhD student at Sheffield University. It was recorded during the American University of Paris' Richard Wright Centennial this past June.

Chester Himes

Paris brought fame and fortune to Chester Himes, who died November 12, 1984. But he's buried in Spain. Why Spain, after his detective novels won him literary prizes in France? The Michel Fabre/Edward Margolies book, 'Several Lives of Chester Himes' says, for one thing, real estate was far more reasonable than Paris in the 60s, so he and soon-to-be wife, Lesley Packard, could finally afford to own.

And, after his arduous journey to recognition and express his bitterness, Spain felt like a place for him to rest, a place to run from his inner demons. Himes' health deteriorated from 1974, beginning with arthritis, a stroke, and finally, Parkinson's Disease. He is buried in a tiny town a few miles down the coast from his home in Moraira, in Alicante province, in the Ceminteri di Benissa.

If you do get that way, on the Costa del Sol, take a detour to pay tribute. Here's what you'll find:

James Baldwin

And if you're in the south of France, St-Paul-de-Vence to be specific, is where you can follow the last of James Baldwin's spirit. In this medieval town perched high in the Vence hills, intriguing with its maze of steep streets, Baldwin bought a farmhouse. St.Paul was also called 'village of artists' by those who made it home since the 1920's - Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, and Modigliani. According to the tourism office, it's not possible to go inside Baldwin's former home but you can walk around the outside. He died here, just past midnight November 30/December 1^st 1987. But he's buried in New York, at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale. Exact location: Hillcrest A, Grave 1203.

*Click here Journal of visit to Wright's gravesite and poetry tribute by Julia Wright:

Photo credits: Angel http://wherestherevolution.blogspot.com/2008/03 ; Chester Himes by Claude 46500104 Find a Grave. All others copyright.

Signs of Progress in Black France?

2008-11-02T15:15:00.011-05:00

Three weeks ago, I took this photo in Paris. It is scotch-taped to the door of a film production company, located in the 6^th district. The 6^th, for those unfamiliar, is an upper middle-class district, with the city's highest per square metre price of real estate. Its politics are centre-right leaning. And, to its great pride, it is home to many of the city's great cultural institutions (Institute of France, Faculty of Fine Arts, The Senate, to name a few).

This cut-out felt like a little flag of hope waving (though the French do not wave flags of their own or any other except to mark official buildings or ceremonies).

But one might say, oh it's Paris, they're cosmopolitan; they've got this admirable history of championing Blacks, right back to La Société des Amis des Noirs/Society of Friends of Blacks in Thomas Jefferson's day.

The seal of the Societe des Amis des Noirs c.1788

The support for a Black candidate for the U.S. presidency stretches into the heartland. During a Colesville Travel/Walking The Spirit Tours visit to the Josephine Baker's chateau in the tradition southwest, the castle-owner herself was enthusiastically sure of Obama's win - bolstered, she said, by their media and the recent visit of the American ambassador.

Entering Chateau des Milandes grounds

Cut to the country's Black population who want to believe this is possible, yet they seriously doubt this could ever happen chez eux (at home). A quick look at government representation tells a depressing tale: of 577 member of the National Assembly, there's not one face like theirs, except from the overseas territories.

The most vocal of these, Mme Christiane Taubira, Deputy from Guyana, told the France Noire- Black France conference on June 6 http://history.berkeley.edu/faculty/Stovall/conference/ of her fight-to-the-death wish to become president of the French people, to represent all citizens, but her projects, plans and ideas are constantly ignored. She said, all who can must stand up. This France is not faithful to itself and its history, she adds.

Or is it? Let's wind the tape back to Richard Wright's Paris, a time when African intellectuals were being groomed in the top French management school to benefit their independence-seeking countries. Fundamental historical relations to France colored the outlook of Diaspora activists Aimé Césaire, Leopold Senghor and Wright. None of them agreed on how Blacks and France should and could formulate a working relationship. It was easier, then as now, for the French to support American Blacks because their fight wasn't/isn't taking place on French soil. Would any of the three applaud (progress) in France today?

Perhaps it’s a trickle up method. On an everyday level, to me, having lived in Paris and Provence for many years, and noted the lack of black representation in the common spaces, I have noticed in recent times, more faces of colour where there were absolutely none. On transatlantic Air France - brown flight attendants, in finer cafés where Monsieur le serveur is trained and diploma'd in the art of service - black servers, and…. in Richard Wright's old café near The Senate, Le Tournon, the first Black behind the counter I've ever seen.

Marking Richard Wright's Passage

2008-09-30T16:34:00.009-05:00

As the month of Richard's Wright's birth comes to a close, and the celebrations of his centennial ring on, I would like to offer these photos as a piece of the memory that still resides in the streets of Paris.

I took the photographs in February 1992 during the "African-Americans and Europe" conference sponsored by the Centre d'Etudes Afro-Americaines de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, Harvard and Columbia Universities and the University of Mississippi.

Here, the plaque that still marks Richard Wright's former home on rue Monsieur Le Prince was erected. It was a momentous moment in African-American history - the first official sign of our passage and cultural influence in Paris.

It was also a marking moment for me. I had only been in Paris 2 years and knew little of the legacy African-American writers, artists, entertainers, and just plain folk had forged in this city. It was during this pilgrimage, that departed from the front entrance of the Sorbonne Nouvelle on the street just behind Monsieur Le Prince, with the late Professor Michel Fabre at the lead, that I decided to create my series of Walking The Spirit Tours and encourage others to come see and feel Black Paris.

Here, as the photos show, our hearts were enthralled to take part in the official ceremony, again commented by Professor Fabre and by Julia Wright, and even her son Malcolm. You might even recognize people, or yourself among the participants.

Getting the plaque through the French bureaucracy took over two years, I understand, and was spearheaded by young lawyer, Ben Davis (in beige slacks).

Today, the building has been royally restored, the front doors draw the hand with their fine etching, and I personally am proud to glance up at it and remember where Richard Wright left his indelible trail.
Left to right: Professor Michel Fabre, Ben Davis, Julia Wright.

(These photos are copyright. If you would like to use one, noncommercially, please email walkthespirit@netscape.net)

What Black and Browns in Paris Think of Obama

2008-07-24T11:24:00.006-05:00

During our Walking The Spirit tour through Black Paris in June for the Richard Wright Centennial, folks were asking me for insight into the pleasing but somewhat mystifying 'Obama Effect' in

France

. His face jumped out at us from every newsstand, from monthly mags to special editions. And though I didn't have time during my trip to actually stop and read the articles, I was more than thrilled to find a consumer magazine on my flight home with a cover headline: The Obama Phenomenon - France Votes for Him.

So I thought I'd share some of it with you.

The source was 'Elle', whose target audience is hip young ladies, so I figured we'd get it, yes, straight from the hip.

Here are some of the comments gathered by journalist Lena Mauger.

Obama fans are divided into two camps: a) the new Parisian class known as 'bobo' bohemian bourgeois - Obama fits right into their left-wing/environmentalist/admirer of revolutionaries stance - he is, quite simply, cool. On the less fortunate side of town, Obama fires up a heated passion in the immigrant-majority suburb teaming with mixed-race youngsters distressed by discrimination.

One high school student exclaims, 'if he wins, it will be the liberation of all Blacks in the world'.

For some, he represents nothing less than the reincarnation of the American Dream. He serves as an example to a France still sketchy on its own immigration.

Obama's avoidance of divisive politics highlights the hurtful actions of their own President, immigrant-born himself, who, they believe, shows contempt for immigrants.

Obamamania reaches all generations. The older generation who were brought into France as laborers, when jobs were plentiful, now lament their lost fantasy of a kinder workplace for their well-educated kids being turned down for jobs because of the un-French name on their resume.

For the hip-hop generation, whatever their country of origin, they're sick of answering the question: 'do you feel more French or Moroccan, Malian, etc.' They're coming up with their own responses inspired by Obama's ease with his multi-ethnic background. One slammeuse Delphine 2 says that Obama 'de-complexes them because he assumes his African and white origins'.

Obama is also a symbol of political accessibility practically non-existent in France, where the only members of the present government of African or Arabic origins were appointed - not elected - by a right wing President.

Mohamed Hamidi, economics professor, and Karim Zeribi, ex-president of Parliament of the Suburbs, were part of a French delegation to Philadelphia recently. They were astonished to find themselves at an Obama meeting, in a room full of blacks, whites, men and women. "You'd be crazy to be an Obama in France,' they said. 'They would say, oh he's the candidate for the Arabs, that one's the candidate for the Muslims, etc. Obama is a hope for those of us who walk with our head down. They had Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and Mohammed Ali but in France we haven't yet had the person who will denounce inequalities and who will last.'

I would love to be caught up in the crowd, cheering Obama as he passes through Paris. I think it would be the very first time since moving there in 1990 that I'd witness most Blacks in the city - African, Caribbean, American - actually sway in one united movement, eager to embrace and align with the same cause. And to acknowledge our common origins, and dialogue in real time about our present and linked future. But also, it's been decades since being American (of any stripe) was considered admirable overseas.

Do The Josephine in July

2008-07-20T14:04:00.009-05:00

I'm making July Josephine month in Black Paris. Why? Because there's a couple more exciting ways for you to celebrate La Venus Noire.

The Josephine Baker Pool

In her debut, she got a reputation for 'taking it off'. Test your own sense of adventure by stripping off the summer finery, slipping into a swimsuit, and taking a dip in the Josephine Baker pool. Encased in glass, this floating barge of serenity is moored to the Seine River at Quai Francois Mauriac at the foot of new Francois Mitterand Library (Bibliotheque Francois Mitterrand) in the 13^th district.

The pool opened in July 2006 but closed unexpectedly because of a fire in the gym section. It re-opens July 21^st. It's not exactly for Olympic swimmers - but you can get in a 25 meter (82 ft) lap. Or take it easy and just soak up the rays streaming through the sleek, retractable sun-roof, meditate on the Paris skyline, or watch the kids paddling around the hedgehog fountain in their own pool. And if paintings from bygone days ever had you wishing for a swim in the Seine, this is the closest you'll get - the pool is filled with recycled water from the river.

Though the location may seem off the well-traced tourist path, it's a great introduction to this 13^th district, once an obstacle course of industrial buildings now home to branché artists' squats, very hip clubs (some on the boats nearby) and the new library. Until Aug 20, the piscine Joséphine Baker offers a cool dip off if you're lounging on the makeshift but hugely fun Paris Beach Paris Plage set up nearby - after the workout, check out the free newspapers, books on loan, WiFi access, and art classes.

If you go: Metro: Bibliotheque F.Mitterand, line 14. Tel 01 56 61 96 50 Entrance:5E.

'In Search of Josephine' Show at Casino de Paris

If you never got to see Josephine in one of her dazzling shows, you've got until August 17 to check out the spectacular 'In Search of Josephine', now playing at the Casino de Paris in the 9^th district, Lower Montmartre area. The revamped Jerome Savary production has pulled out the mesmerizing costumes, her dances, and the New Orleans swing that livened up the 1920s and 30s.

Josephine actually performed at the Casino in 1930 (it's not a gambling casino, in fact, but a luxurious concert hall), shaking up the entertainment world and enraging her rival Mistinguett. Josephine's 'The Show That Shakes' did just that.

Just as important: this place is home to African-American jazz in Paris. It was here in 1917 that drummer Louis Mitchell brought his hand-picked band, The Jazz Kings, to delight throngs of fans of this new music. For five years upstairs at the Perroquet Room, the fans and the venue showed their love with their wallet. Mitchell raked in the dough - making ten times more than a French cabinet minister. The Jazz Kings accompanied the biggest names in Music Hall of the times, including Josephine and her 'Revue Qui Remue - Show That Shakes'.

One our tour participants (Shirellia Moore), kindly took these photos as we visited the Casino during our Walking The Spirit Tours Tour #2 The Entertainers. This is upstairs at the Perroquet Room today, same as in the 1930s.

Official Stamps

Stateside, the US Post Office has just issued a series of stamps commemorating the greats of Black Cinema, including our Josephine. Buy them at your nearest outlet or through the website. France did the same for Josephine in 1994, which I am proud to own, and for Sidney Bechet in 2002.

Black Buzz in Paris in June

2008-05-27T11:24:00.002-05:00

There is an intellectual buzz going on in Paris around the Black presence in France in June. It’s a rare occasion and treat. Several conferences and groupings around various aspects of Blacks in France - and that includes our reflections on our own African-American history, Negritude, Immigration and Identification in Black France, and lots more. Plus the screening of hosts the PBS documentary series ‘African American Lives’ hosted by Henry Louis Gates, and to top it off, some insight on the Barack Obama effect in France.

June 2008 in Paris - Black Is Beautiful! And up for some pretty hot discussion.

Here’s a quick look:

June 6 & 7

France Noire - Black France

The Poetics and Politics of Blackness

This colloquium is offering some really high level discussions with leading thinkers and movers. Some inviting sessions include: The Unheard of Voice in Black Paris with Brent Edwards of Columbia U., Reflections on the Future of Black Paris by Rosetta Jules-Rosette, The Black Question in the French media since 2005 by TV journalist Fatimata Wane-Sagna, and much more.

You can read the full schedule and location here: http://history.berkeley.edu/faculty/Stovall/conference/

Novelist Jake Lamar and Artist/Author Barbara Chase-Riboud will also be participating.

Of special note: Opening remarks will be by Tyler Stovall, author of the very informative guide ‘Paris Noire’, and key note speaker is Madame Christiane Taubira of the French Parliament (whose groundbreaking legislation Taubira Law recognizes slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity).

If you are within flying distance of Paris, don’t miss this gathering of great minds and fodder for brilliant discussion.

June 19-21

The American University in Paris is hosting an International Conference on Richard Wright. September 4 of this year would have been the writer’s 100^th birthday and the university program is drawing scholars and experts from across the world. Wright left such a rich body of work and his life experience played out to characterize several crucial moments in Black American history - from his childhood in Natchez Mississippi where this intellectually curious young boy found a way to obtain a forbidden library card, to sidestepping a ‘set for life’ job at the post office in Chicago in exchange for the precarity of speaking his mind through his writing, exploring the decidedly non-American option of communism, and finally breaking away to friendlier turf in France.

The conference also honor former Richard Wright scholar, Professor Michel Fabre, who brought many students of all ages and nationalities to the richness of African-American literature. I, for one, remember being quite surprised to find myself the only Black student in one of his Black Lit classes at the Sorbonne.

For the full schedule on the International Richard Wright Conference:

http://www.aup.fr/news/special_events/wright.htm

For the conference, Walking The Spirit Tours is the official tour provider of walks through Black history in the Latin Quarter & St.Germain-des-Pres. www.walkingthespirit.com

June 4

The screening of the unprecedented PBS series ‘African-American Lives’, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W.E.B Du Bois professor of the Humanities and chair of African and African-American Studies at Harvard U.

The series provides a life-changing journey for 12 highly accomplished African-Americans (such as Maya Angelou, Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock, Tina Turner…). It uses genealogy, oral history, family stories and DNA analysis to help trace lineage through African history and back to Africa.

Episode 1 June 4 - The Road Home focuses on stories of the participants’ ancestors from the early 20^th century

Episode 2 June 11- A Way Out of No Way continues back through the late 1800s to the Civil War.

Shows at 12 noon and 7 pm.

At the Mona Bismarck Foundation, 34 avenue de New York, Paris 16, Metro: Alma-Marceau or Iena,

Cost 5 E.

Absolutely must RSVP to aawe@wanadoo.fr

June 3rd - Tuesday

The Barack Obama Effect in France

Want to know what the French think of Obama? Here’s your chance to hear it firsthand.

This one-evening conference is organized by the French Committee for the Support of Barack Obama. And will be held and the Political Science campus, and speakers include Constance Borde - super delegate and VP of Democratic Party in France.

If you can get a cheap ticket and get over to Paris, it will be worth the mental stimulation to get this close to the fire - yes Paris will Burning Bright and Black.

And to go out with some special honors -

May in Black history in Paris the month to celebrate the life of Langston Hughes (died May 19), James Reese Europe (brought jazz to France) also died May 19, and the granddaddy of expatriate African-American painters - Henry Ossawa Tanner - died May 25, 1937.

Banging The Drum in France

2007-06-04T22:39:00.000-05:00

The first jazz in Paris was played at the Casino de Paris concert hall.

This blanket acceptance of Black Americans in France - where did that all start anyway? Word of mouth? Family stories of war heroes and adventurous women? Classroom texts?

You just have to read the amazed tales of the likes of intellectual W.E.B Dubois, former slave Frederick Douglass, editor Mary Church Terrell for what they tasted during their short visits about a hundred or so years ago. But it was the ‘doughboys’, the soldiers of World War I who spent months with the French, struck up real friendships, chowed down at their kitchen tables, then brought home the real stories.

The 369th Harlem Infantry Regiment

The troop leader’s name was James Reese Europe. He was black, patriotic to the core, and a brilliant musician. He and his 369^th Harlem Infantry Regiment impressed their French combat forces with well-aimed grenades and swift bayonets. But he goes down in history - Black, War, and American history, for two things: One - marching that purely black music - jazz, into the hearts and culture of France and
Two - its outcome.

Combining the two things they did best, the soldiers paved the way for the French to form their own opinions of Black Americans and not judge them as ‘victims’ as the French surmised Black Americans to be. In turn, they were elevated to the highest respect because the French revered excellence and this new musical expression revealed nothing less.

The all-black 369^th regiment set first foot on French soil on New Year’s Day 1918. Members included Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson,

artist Horace Pippin, and Noble Sissle, one of the celebrated comedy musicals director/songwriter duo of Sissle and Blake (Shuffle Along, Josephine Baker's first big show).

Barely stepped off the boat, they treated the French convoy they were to join to a jaunty version of “The Marseillaise”, the French national anthem. Can’t blame the French for not recognizing this particular jazzy rendition but it sure didn’t stop them from tapping their boots to it.

Inspiration In The Trenches

Jim Crow laws within the army kept the black troops from doing their duty alongside their white compatriots at the front. But the French Army was desperate for reinforcements and invited them to join forces. And off they marched, the ‘Trois Cents Soixante-Neuvieme’, as they were called. Jim Europe became the first African-American officer to lead troops into combat in World War I. Yet even with bombs exploding, gas creeping, and rats biting, music was never out of his mind. While recovering from a gas attack he wrote one of the band’s most famous post-war tunes ‘ On Patrol in No Man’s Land’ based on a night’s bombardment.

Speaking of No Man’s Land, marching their rejuvenating music through rural towns all through France could have easily made them the target of small town prejudice and mistrust but not so. What a warm welcome awaited them. If you get a chance to rent or buy Ken Burns’ excellent documentary ‘Jazz’, there’s some priceless footage of these New Yorkers decked in their military gear, instruments blaring, even doing some fancy footwork to the delight of locals - and wandering geese.

After generations of traditional accordion, fiddle, and classical music how could the French resist? Ragtime was already big in France. These black Americans playing live jazz personified the basis of French tolerance - that a person do what they do with excellence, end of judgment (and all the better if it reflects positively on France’s benevolence). But it wasn’t just about the music. These soldiers lived in French homes, lent a hand on the farm, and formed relationships, which brought the French to take their side against the mighty Americans.

Turning The Tables

White American troops had a reputation as arrogant and childish. For those familiar with the French brand of arrogance, we know for one thing that they resent being dictated to. Imagine their reaction when American propaganda was parachuted down over the villages to influence even little shepherd girls in the far reaches of the Alps. Flyers warned them against the ‘Soldat noir - vilain!’ (Stay away from Black soldiers!)

And you just know that was followed up with white army personnel trying to prevent French girls from hanging out with the black soldiers. One story goes when the girls of the town of Granvillars reported such incidents back to their new friends, one black lieutenant got up infront of the neighboring village and denounced his compatriots/enemies as ‘crackers’ and ‘pecks’. As a result the welcome mat was rolled up tight to whites in homes, restaurants and cafés.

Stateside, the soldiers weren’t the only ones spreading the word about the liberty, equality, and just plain decency and stunning friendliness they experienced in France. Others, like W.E.B. Dubois, gathered testimonies and published them.

In an article in Crisis of May 1919, entitled ‘Documents of War’, a letter from a French woman recounted how the initial fear of her small town turned to cooperation: “We see the little children in the arms of the huge Negroes, confidently pressing their cheeks to the cheeks of ebony, with their mothers looking on in approbation…. A deep sympathy is created for these men which yesterday was not even surmised… Now one is honored to have them at his table. One spends hours in long talks with them, with a great supply of dictionaries…”

Read more about the 369^th Harlem Infantry Regiment and the intellectuals who visited Paris at the turn of the century in Professor Michel Fabre’s thorough book: From Harlem To Paris, Black American Writers in France 1840-1960, University of Indiana Press.

Also Tyler Stovall’s ‘Paris Noir’.

And google it!

Janet's Own Rhythm
A good friend, a woman who lived out her Paris dream, died on April 11th in the city she adored.

Janet McDonald’s march to Paris was a torturous one, marked by social exclusion, rape, and pyromania. As she told in her brutally realistic autobiography, Project Girl (www.projectgirl.com), she had Paris in her sites since her school days, at Vassar and Columbia.

I met Janet for the first time in 1990 shortly after my own arrival in Paris. The dream of this Brooklyn project girl was to be a writer, though at the time she shared a tiny ground-floor flat with her cat, not the mythical sixth-floor garret. She went back to the States, got her law credentials then marched right back here and made her own history. Janet became the first African-American, and one of the very few Americans, accepted to the French bar. Yet she remained more amused than impressed by this means to her success.

As a filmmaker I wanted to film her in her favorite pose.
That didn’t turn out to be the one of her decked out in her “Miss Thang” suit, high heels up on her big old office desk. Nor throwing out witty comments to her adoring literary public at her many readings of her autobio and several young adults’ books.

(That's her, in full robe,on the stairs of the Palais de Justice)

The footage she loved best was of her belting out “La Marseillaise”, a more recognizable version than the 369^thRegiment’s, in the heart of Paris’ most Parisian park - the Luxembourg Gardens. She knew every word of blood, gore and thirst for revenge. And that’s exactly what Janet got from her dream of Paris - sweet revenge on sticking out like a sore thumb as a too smart, Afro-sporting, Projects-born woman in America. In Paris she fit right in.

I, like many, were shocked and shaken to the core to learn of her passing. But underneath the grief, I’m so very pleased she traded in a successful career in law to ‘tell the honest truth about herself’. Mission impossible for most. I would’ve loved for her to write a sequel to her ‘Top 10 of the Year’s Best, (LA Times) memoir . Oh, for sure she would’ve skewered the truth about the Paris experience, but with her protective genuine fondness for the place.

And I realize now that Paris was more a safe haven from which to examine the still tender traumas of her younger years. Without that shelter and distance, her reflections perhaps wouldn’t have found their way out to eventually be able to commiserate with her audience of young people whom she felt more needing. More than we need another book about Paris. Anyway, that her remains rest at the cemetery of the stars, Père Lachaise, physically ensconces her forever in the company of two other African-Americans literary figures buried there, - and both just as French-loving as she - New Orleanean playwright Victor Séjour (1874) and author Richard Wright (1960).

And one more for poetic endings...

Richard Earned His Right

If you’ve read Richard Wright’s autobiography Black Boy, you’ll remember the profound frustration and indignity of his not being allowed a library card of his own in early 20^th century Mississippi. Well, on April 20, the South Hills Library in Jackson, Mississippi was renamed the Richard Wright Library.

You'll find all three of these elements outside Richard Wright's former home in Paris, and when taking Walking The Spirit Tours - Writers, Artists & Intellectuals.

Photo credits: Michael Dickel, National Archives, Janet McDonald.

Hope you had a good read!

Comments? Don't be shy! And pssst - pass this on.

A bientot!

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2007-02-25T22:25:00.000-05:00

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2007-02-23T21:45:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the only place on the web where the spirit of black Paris past and present will entertain, enlighten, and inspire you, on a monthly basis.

Have you already taken one of my Walking The Spirit Tours? Strolled the narrow cobblestone streets, peered up at the window where James Baldwin lived or had your picture taken at Place Josephine Baker? Then you’ll get to relive and learn more.

If you're studying Black history for pleasure or academic gain, this blog will paint pictures between the lines of your books.

And for those still daydreaming about Paris, lean yourselves forward and prepare to leave that armchair.

History outside the book

Expect more than a history lesson. It’s going to be a personal journey for you the reader/participant and for me, too.

Since 1994, I've been sharing the amazing and dismaying stories of our predecessors with visitors and Parisians. No surprise that their stories began to filter into my own, and it became impossible not to compare mine with theirs. Many of my African-American friends in Paris lived similar circumstances and came out with a wide range of outcomes. Those of us in contemporary Paris are simply continuing the time line laid down by the likes of artist Henry O. Tanner, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Bricktop, and the rest of the black community of expatriates.

Month by month in this space I’ll put my personal spin on the stories of the most famous expatriates and the lesser known.

In the beginning...

It’s no secret the first visitors came for a taste of the legendary tolerance the French made their motto: liberté, egalité, fraternité. Among the first to visit and form their own opinion were former slave Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Mary Church Terrell, and W.E.B Dubois. Then followed artists, soldiers, entertainers, writers, and more recently, business people. One thing we and they all have in common : a stay in France has a way of cranking open the mind and body to new ways of being and thinking. The bakeries, gorgeous architecture, alluring river were and are all icing on the cake.

Starting Afresh

I like to think of the expatriate Paris experience as a rebirth.

For myself, I landed at Charles de Gaulle airport on February 1, 1990, raring to kick off a new chapter . After two years of floating in a touristy-buzz, hypnotized by the same bakeries, moody strolls across the river bridges, and feeling slightly crushed by splendor of the architecture, my raison d’etre plunked itself in my path. It beckoned through the footsteps of Langston Hughes.

Langston H.

The poet of the people, the creator of jazz poetry was incidentally also born on February 1st, in 1902. The train that brought him to Paris for the first time huffed into the station in February as well. I met him however in my own north Paris 17th arrondissement neighborhood.

After taking a course at the Sorbonne under the European expert on Black history, Professor Michel Fabre (from whose book I quote liberally here), I followed his 'Street Guide To African-Americans in Paris' and found myself at number 15 rue Nollet. Nothing much impressive about this nondescript Parisian building, guarded, bien sur, by a concierge and her mouthy miniature dog. I waited. When lunch inevitably called them away, I slipped in, mounted the six creaky flights up then there it was - his blue door, with a gaping 2-inch gap between the sawed off bottom and the stone floor.

“The room was right out of a book and I began to say to myself I guess dreams do come true.” (from his autobiography The Big Sea).

Poor Langston’s toes must’ve frozen in that drafty garret as he worked by day on the piece that was to become his very first paid poem. Then night after night while he washed dishes and emptied champagne bottles down the hill at Le Grand Duc nightclub, his head was buzzing with a revolutionary new type of poetry of his own creation- the jazz poem. Matching words to the rhythms of the fiery singer Bricktop while she entertained Europeans and prohibition-fleeing Americans out front, out danced the beat of 'Me & My Baby'.

Can't say I ever harbored that mythical 'living and writing in a garret' dream. I came simply for a change from my Canadian existence;because I’m naturally a rolling stone; and because I’d always had an inexplicable thing for French culture. Like Langston, and like my fellow expats, I got caught up and worn down pretty quickly in the fighting off the French attitudes and going with the flow.

Will the real Paris please show it's face?

It took all of 3 weeks for Langston’s romantic picture of Paris to wear off. His first letters home to fellow Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen griped something like, “The French are the most franc-loving, sou-clutching, hard-faced, hard-worked, cold and half-starved set of people I’ve ever seen in my life. Heat unknown. Hot water, what is it? You even pay for a smile here.”

But he ends that letter with an observation that leads him to his own raison d’etre in Paris - that of spokesperson for his own: “But the colored people here are fine, there are lots of us.”

In the ‘20s, the dingy working class neighborhood around Place Clichy housed a jumble of immigrants and working class French. Today it’s still a swirl of donner meat stands, luggage shops, Arabic pastries, discount clothiers and black hair shops.

The Weary Man Blues

Nothing like living the blues to write it right. Langston told black life in America like nobody else and scrounging alongside the working class and black people in the dregs of Montmartre brought painful inspiration. Finding a job was tough, what with the Italian and Polish newcomers willing to work for less than the low-paid French laborers. Langston's outstretched hand was resented, not because he was black but because he was further competition in a tight job market. He turned his new insights into race-conscious poems that later inspired the concept of the Negritude movement headed by Diaspora writers Aime Cesaire and Leopold Senghor.

When he returned to Paris in 1937 much richer and famous to attend the second International Writers Congress, they cheered him as 'the people's poet'. True to his unwavering black pride, he chose to stay in his old ‘hood at a hotel run by an Ethiopian on rue Fontaine, known as Black Montmartre in the 20s. To him, the area felt more like Harlem than downtown St.Germain-des-Pres, headquarters for later writers.

Some had it better, some had it worse....

Let's move on to a few artists. The French episode left an indelible mark on their lives... for the good and the not so great.

France played a cruel and decisive role in the life of artist Horace Pippin. This native of West Chester, PA was born on February 22, 1888 then moved to Goshen, New York where his deep attachment to rural black American family life formed the basis for his artistic expression. As a kid, Pippin got into lots of trouble drawing on his assignments at school but nothing could stop that pencil of his. Nothing except a bullet in the shoulder during World War I.

Pippin was a squad leader in the famous and celebrated all-volunteer black regiment, the 369^th Harlem Infantry (more on them in March). This unit doubled as a jazz band that marched their unheard-of music through the villages of Belgium, France and England. That bullet, however, in 1918 crippled Pippin’s drawing arm and it took eight impoverished years until he rehabilitated himself to burning wood paintings, which landed his work in New York Museum of Modern Art.

Augusta's Revenge

Paris was sweet revenge for another February-born (02.29.1892) artist : sculptor, activist and educator Augusta Christine Savage.

"My brother was good enough to be accepted in one of the regiments that saw service in France during the war, but it seems his sister is not good enough to be a guest of the country for which he fought... How am I going to compete with other American artists if I am not to be given the same opportunity."

Those are the fighting words of the precocious seventh child out of fourteen in the Savage family. Augusta started molding clay animals as a child in Cove Springs and West Palm Beach Florida. Her talent was so impressive that an art critic from the Julius Rosenwald Fund awarded her two $1,800 fellowships. But national outrage hit the fan when a committee of seven white men denied her a scholarship to study at the School of Art in Fontainebleau because of her race. A bevy of fundraising efforts, however, got her to Paris, where she enrolled in the famous Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in 1929.

Not a year later, she was basking in recognition at the prestigious Paris Salon art shows. A medallion from one of her African figures was reproduced for the 1931 French Colonial Exhibition. Back in the States, she opened her own studio in New York and spearheaded a fresh aesthetic in Black art. Her greatest monument, she said, was turning her talent to the teaching of young black people in New York. Her most famous works include: Gamin, The Harp, The Chase, Prima Donna, Black Woman, and Lift Every Voice and Sing.

Black was Beautiful in Paris

Imagine how vibrant Paris was in the 20s and especially for African-Americans. Jazz was the hottest music on the Continent, it's musicians wrote their own tickets, Josephine lit up the night sky, Langston gave us the goods straight up, and the artists showed the only art world that mattered that sure they'd follow the European model but with all the talent they had to spare,
they were rewriting the foundations of black and European art.

Wish I'd been there...

Next month: Tearing it up with the Harlem Hellfighters...

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