African-Americans Who Called Paris Home

Many greats of our time have called Paris home-Langston Hughes, Nina Simone, James Baldwin, Claude McKay and Countee Cullen to name a few. They did this, not because they wanted to, but because they were forced to. Josephine Baker couldn't find work where the audience wasn't segregated. James Baldwin experienced racism and sexism-not being served at restaurants and made to enter through the back door. The stories are numerous and endless. Facing so much racism and unable to find work, many African Americans went to Paris for a fresh start and a place where they could actually work and live in peace. Africans Americans had been living in France for hundreds of years. Later, 200,000 were brought over to fight in WW1 and many stayed. They were welcomed by the French and chose to remain rather than come home to the oppression and segregation that awaited in the United States. Paris provided a safe haven for writers, jazz musicians, artists, scholars and professors at a time when they needed it most.