Different Missions to the Same Place
Through the early 1900s to around the middle of the 1950s, black Americans left the United States and went to Paris and other parts of Europe in order to escape racism and discriminatory practices. These blacks, who were involved in a variety of vocations, discovered Europe, and particularly Paris, to be more inviting to them than the country which they called home: the United States.
Josephine Baker found the French to be more receptive and appreciative of her entertainment style than those in the United States were. Langston Hughes described Paris as the city where you could be “totally yourself.” Ada “Bricktop” Smith discovered the city as being where she could finally open and own her own nightclub, something that was impossible to do in America, because of her skin color.
Not all of the blacks that set out for Europe were in the entertainment business. Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman to hold a pilot’s license, went to Paris in 1920 in order to obtain this license, since the United States would not allow her at home. Prior to her achievement, Eugene Bullard became the first African-American military pilot, fighting in World War I with the Lafayette Escadrille. Bullard would make a productive life for himself in France, becoming a nightclub owner, and inviting some of the best blacks in the entertainment business to come and perform there.
These blacks went to Paris in order to achieve an American Dream that was not granted to them in America itself. They wanted to take advantage of the ideals that make the United States special, such as the belief that every man can rise from poverty and achieve great wealth, and in order to live out these advantages, they had to leave the country that promised them.
However, not all blacks simply wanted to escape racist practices. Randall Garrett, an actor and playwright from Seattle, Washington, simply wanted to have the opportunity to travel.
The decision was not simple for Garrett, who came to Europe between the late 1960s and middle of the 1970s. Unlike some of those that went to Paris, he had opportunities at home that would have allowed him to live comfortably. He had an agent that wanted to take him to Hollywood, the possibility of working with the United Nations, and was invited to work for his father’s bank in Seattle, called Liberty Bank, which was one of the first black banks established east of the Mississippi River during that time. However, despite the criticism, Garrett went on his own path.
“I just wanted to travel,” Garrett said in an interview conducted by a group of Morgan State University students. “I wanted to see the world.”
When Garrett arrived, he knew that he had made the right decision.
“I flew into London and [after] 10 minutes in London, I knew that I would never go back and live in America again.”
For others, the instant attraction to living abroad was not expected. Monifa Pendleton surprised herself by falling in love with France on her first visit several years before moving to Paris permanently.
“I actually came to France for the first time in 1999 for business, and [I] really didn’t want to come because of the myth of they don’t like Americans and all that,” Pendelton said. “And then I actually fell in love with the place.”
The French culture drew Pendelton, who is from The Bronx, New York, in, and inspired her to make Paris her new home.
“It was diverse, it had culture, [and] all of the cafes and chairs faced the street.”
Like the culture in France, the reasons for blacks coming to Paris and other parts of Europe are many and diverse. As time goes on, reasons will likely be added, and it will be interesting to see what causes people to travel in the future. Moreover, the continued change of the United States, and its connection with the rest of the world, may impact the way that other countries receive American expats as well.