Show & Tell on the Champs-Elysées

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.

-------------

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!

Like what you've read? I'm inviting you to officially follow me - choose the portal of your choice in the sidebar. You'll get my BlogLetter while it's still sizzling off the press!

Bricktop - A Black Woman Takes Paris On Her Terms

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

-->

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
 

-->
-->

Richard Wright's Normandy & Black Montmartre

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.

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.