FRANCE HAS WELCOMED AFRICAN-AMERICANS SINCE WORLD WAR I...

 WHEN THEIR SOLDIERS' JAZZ ASTONISHED PARISIANS

France-Amérique / zoom 

Gospel is frequently performed by Black Americans, and has spread to French Parisians.

Bechet's first stay in France (in 1925-1929) ended with 11 months in jail for having accidentally shot a woman. Back in the U.S. he opened a tailor shop to make ends meet, where musicians would come and play with him at the back of the store. Feeling that the US had no room for him he returned to France in 1951, where he became legendary. 

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Ursuline Kairson arrived in Paris with a Broadway show, became lead singer at the Paradis Latin cabaret, stars in the musical Maya, une voix (see the poster below and click here for a performance).

Entrée to Black Paris

Franklin sang at Obama's inauguration... and has a Parisian park named after her.

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Josephine Baker, one of the first international stars, has...  

• Entered the Panthéon (the secular mausoleum)...

Entrée to Black Paris, March 21 2021

The television station France 24 then interviewed Monique Wells, who publishes Entrée to Black Paris and guides visits that focus on African-Americans.

• Had a square named after her...

Claude Abron

Inauguration of place Joséphine Baker, 14th, with the district mayor and Ursuline Kairson.

• A poster that is often adapted...

Entrée to Black Paris 

   

Bus stop in the 13th, novembre 2023; decor 2024 (Facebook, Jill Danger)

• Her image painted on a wall in an ordinary part of town...

  169 boulevard de l'Hopital,13th

• And a musical to commemorate her entry on the Paris scene a century ago:  

Entrée to Black Paris

For write-ups by the publication mentioned below, please click:

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As well:

  

Entrée to Black Paris

Photo and write-up, Entry to Black Paris

Africa Rising II, sculpture by Barbara Chase Riboud in Tuileries gardens, 2025

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Events of the African diaspora in Paris can be discovered through the blog Entrée to Black Paris...

Entry to Black Paris, instagram

Monique Wells, blog writer and tour guide on the Black diaspora in Paris (since 2019), here on a wharf of the Seine. Photos for the award-winning blog appear on these pages.

Photo in the write-up for the show "WAX!" at the musée de l'Homme, 2025.

And the newsletter of the association Sistahs Circle Paris, which  informs of coming Black events and creates its own:

Kathleen Demaron, founder (in 2019) and president.

Recommended YouTube video of talk on the 18th-century African-American writer Phyllis Wheatley.

Sherry Bell, co-founder of the Black Caucus for Democrats Abroad, mobilizes for the left. Next to her, Marti Demetrion, secretary. For an example of the list of events compiled with the help of association members, please click.

All are welcome.

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Next,

Then acknowledged Third-World Blacks...