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Paris Noir: African-Americans in the City of Light
Stovall (history, U. of California-Santa Cruz) fills a large gap in the study of American expatriots by chronicling the changing but steady presence of African American artists who fled racial oppression for the freedom of the French capital during the 20th century. Writers Richard Wright and James Baldwin, musicians Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, dancer Josephine Baker, and painters Henry Assawa Tanner and Lons Mailou Jones are among those who appear. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
366 pages, Hardcover
First published December 4, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 20, 2015
Fascinating read! I've always been a bit enamored by Black artists, writers, and other creatives who brought the Jazz Age to Paris. I also appreciated how the author made the reader aware that even though many were seeking to leave racism behind, France had/has its own issues with racism.
May 23, 2013
This book describes in great detail the historical trend of groups of African Americans during World War I, World War ll, and post war years. After the war several artists, musicians, GI's, and writers spent time in Paris to escape the binds of American racism in the United States. The book is divided into the following chapters; Freedom Overseas: African American soldiers fight the great war, Bringing the Jazz age to Paris, Depression and war: Paris in the 1930's, Life on the left bank, the golden age of african american literature in Paris, new perspectives on race, and African Americans in Paris today.
The two groups of African Americans in Paris was a result of the war and seeking exile from American racism, artists were able to become successful in both Europe and America because of the large group of intellectuals and like Black American expatriates, also during these two periods of time Parisians first saw American blacks as exotic and less than themselves, however during the second period of American black expatriates Parisians saw American blacks as equal people and equal intellectuals. During the war famous American blacks in Paris included; Josephine Baker, Chester Himes, Louis Armstrong, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, among others. In the later chapters we discover that the end of 1920's and 1930's and other periods are dominated by the end of legendary writers, artists, and musicians. We also see that though Paris and France appear to be color blind, that's not entirely correct since French immigrants and blacks are treated cruelly, like how American blacks were treated. What we learn in the final chapter is that places like clubs, music halls, and American black restaurants are the places where generations of black expatriates form their communities. American black expatriates created "communities" which was stronger during the war years with renown artists, musicians, writers both across Europe and the United States. Even though these legendary figures knew fellow such American black figures they didn't always know one another. However as the years progressed the American black community spread but these expatriates were more modern and students who didn't come to Paris to reside but for short stays. The book goes to great length in differentiating the three different periods of black American expatriates. Even though these black Americans choose exile from American racism, but they kept current and engaged in the black struggle in the U.S. Such figures choose to engage themselves with the black struggle through their literary works; novels,articles, short stories, and poems. For the most part most these figures chose to annually or more than once a year to return visiting and engaging in the black struggle movement in the U.S. This is a great book for understanding how the black diaspora formed. If your looking for a book about the African American experience abroad specifically in Paris use this as a guidebook in conjunction with Michel Farbe's From Harlem to Paris. Which are general introductions to the African American experience in Paris.
The two groups of African Americans in Paris was a result of the war and seeking exile from American racism, artists were able to become successful in both Europe and America because of the large group of intellectuals and like Black American expatriates, also during these two periods of time Parisians first saw American blacks as exotic and less than themselves, however during the second period of American black expatriates Parisians saw American blacks as equal people and equal intellectuals. During the war famous American blacks in Paris included; Josephine Baker, Chester Himes, Louis Armstrong, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, among others. In the later chapters we discover that the end of 1920's and 1930's and other periods are dominated by the end of legendary writers, artists, and musicians. We also see that though Paris and France appear to be color blind, that's not entirely correct since French immigrants and blacks are treated cruelly, like how American blacks were treated. What we learn in the final chapter is that places like clubs, music halls, and American black restaurants are the places where generations of black expatriates form their communities. American black expatriates created "communities" which was stronger during the war years with renown artists, musicians, writers both across Europe and the United States. Even though these legendary figures knew fellow such American black figures they didn't always know one another. However as the years progressed the American black community spread but these expatriates were more modern and students who didn't come to Paris to reside but for short stays. The book goes to great length in differentiating the three different periods of black American expatriates. Even though these black Americans choose exile from American racism, but they kept current and engaged in the black struggle in the U.S. Such figures choose to engage themselves with the black struggle through their literary works; novels,articles, short stories, and poems. For the most part most these figures chose to annually or more than once a year to return visiting and engaging in the black struggle movement in the U.S. This is a great book for understanding how the black diaspora formed. If your looking for a book about the African American experience abroad specifically in Paris use this as a guidebook in conjunction with Michel Farbe's From Harlem to Paris. Which are general introductions to the African American experience in Paris.
March 31, 2020
Dr. Stovall traces the presence of African Americans in Paris, France from the Roaring ‘20’s until the 1990’s. Black American jazz musicians were the early émigrés who satisfied Parisians’ rapacious thirst for their new type of music and the dance movements displayed by performers such as Josephine Baker. Such entertainments were a balm for French citizens and visitors--Royal and work-a-day--after the weariness of both the first and second World Wars. Stovall writes this history as if it were a romance between Black American artists and the entire city--a Paris that accepted them as fellow humans when their own American countrymen, even while in Paris, belittled and demeaned them and their works. Yes, when the local economy went awry, the French did protest that these foreign musicians were taking too many jobs. And the French eventually developed and supported homegrown, white jazz artists. But African Americans were able to open clubs and restaurants of their own in Paris and were even able to find prestigious positions as diverse as news reporting, engineering and fashion photography with local companies. I found PARIS NOIR to be quite an engrossing read.
April 21, 2008
A very important and super detailed account of Black Americans who found Paris as a great home, starting with the World War 1 years. Fascinating history of people like Josephine Baker, the great jazz drummer Kenny Clarke, Richard Wright and others who made Paris as their central headquarters for creative activity.
January 6, 2017
Paris Noir is a fantastic deep dive into the lives of African-American expats living in Paris during the interwar (post-WWI, pre-WWII) period. Stovall's writing is a bit dense, but all the stories he packs into this book are fascinating.
April 16, 2011
A fast-paced, well-researched look at the African-American experience of Paris. Chock full of entertaining anecdotes, its exploration of the post-World War I years is especially engaging.
August 31, 2020
Read first two chapters for “black writers in paris” class
January 5, 2019
An excellent compendium of African Americans in Paris but not particularly artful.
July 3, 2024
American saw horrific race violence after WWI -- race riots in the north, lynchings in the south -- and Picasso's fascination with African art continued. "The dreadful, mechanical slaughter of the war sharply increased this fascination, for African culture seemed to embody a lush, naive sensuality and spirituality that cold, rational Europeans had lost" (31).
Rene Maran, whose Batouala won the Prix Goncourt in 1922, was born in Martinique, educated in France and served the administration in colonial Africa. In the preface, "he shocked many French readers with its sharp attack on French colonialism and praise of African culture . . . 'Civilization, civilization, pride of the Europeans, and charnel house of innocents . . . You build your kingdom on corpsses."
Mostly they lived in Montmartre, the bohemian capital of Paris at the time.
CIA agents had infiltrated the Black expatriate community; Wright's last novel was a roman a clef about the time and his disillusion with exile.
Paris may objectively provide a better situation for Black Americans than the US, although perhaps in some ways it is no longer so different. But "The idea of Paris as a city that receives blacks with dignity and respect should be considered not just a statement of objective reality (although much evidence supports it), but equally as a conceptual strategy for criticizing continued discrimination in the US. Portraying Paris, a city whose name spells prestige among all Americans, as a haven of tolerance and success for black Americans serves to undermine the racial status quo on the other side of the Atlantic by placing it in an unfavorable international perspective. . . . As long as racial hierarchies remain central to life in America, the importance of the black expatriate experience as a symbolic escape from, and critique of, racism will endure. (300).
Josephine Baker witnessed Black people streaming across the bridge to escape the St. Louis race riots (50).
Sometimes it seemed the entire Harlem Renaissance had been transferred to Paris: Langston Hughes, Claud McKay, Countee Cullen, Walter White, Jean Toomer (went there with Gurdjieff). However, while they appreciated Paris, there was no Black lost generation community in Paris in the 20s - that had to wait until the 50s. (62).
The French American fellowship, founded by Richard Wright and William Rutherford, and including James Baldwin, Leroy Haynes, Ollie Stewart, Jean-Paul Sartre, Claude Bourdet, and Charles Delauney. They protested discrimination at the American Hospital in Paris, demanded US grant a vis to Marxist historian Daniel Guerin, and fought the conviction of Willie McGee (196).
Wright influenced Ousmane Sembane "whose novel The Black Docker owned much to both Nativ eSon and Claud McKay's Banjo. (197).
Write was friends with Jamaican George Padmore, who in 1953 was a political advisor to Kwame Nkrumah. Wright stopped in Sierra Leone, then the Gold Coast, publishing his observations in Black Power. (198).
Baldwin met Wright at Les Deux Magots when he first arrived, but felt "patronized or ignored by the French intellectuals who formed part of Wright's circle." His money ran out and he moved to Belleville, the Harlem of Paris, yet retained some ties with the Left Bank expatriates, he still felt isolated from the Left Bank culture (201). Baldwin b/c estranged from Wright when B criticized Wright in "Everybody's Protest Novel." B/c Wright was under criticism at home for "his politics and for leaving America" it "made it seem that Baldwin was working with those in the American government and literary establishment eager to tarnish the great writer's reputation in order to promote his own." They had a "stormy meeting at the Brasserie Lipp in Saint-Germain-des-Pres" and remained estranged for the rest of their lives (202).
Giovanni's Room as the story of white characters written by a Black man, which Stovall attributes to Paris as "a place where Baldwin could be judged simply as an individual, not as the sum of his various social identities" (205).
Chester Himes book The Lonely Crusade portrayed "union organizing among the kinds of black workers he had met in the Los Angeles shipyards. [It] met with harsh reception from both sides, black and white, in the literary establishment, shocking many with its explicit discussion of politics and sexuality. The Atlantic Monthly commented that 'hate runs through this book like a streak of yellow bile,' whereas Commentary compared it to 'graffito on the walls of public toilets'" (207. Currently reading Revenge Capitalism - surely the hate comment is an example of revenge being projected onto the oppressed, for if hate does run through the book, it's white peoples' hatred of blacks as exemplified by their behavior (207).
Himes wrote a two-volume autobiography of that time.
Rene Maran, whose Batouala won the Prix Goncourt in 1922, was born in Martinique, educated in France and served the administration in colonial Africa. In the preface, "he shocked many French readers with its sharp attack on French colonialism and praise of African culture . . . 'Civilization, civilization, pride of the Europeans, and charnel house of innocents . . . You build your kingdom on corpsses."
Mostly they lived in Montmartre, the bohemian capital of Paris at the time.
CIA agents had infiltrated the Black expatriate community; Wright's last novel was a roman a clef about the time and his disillusion with exile.
Paris may objectively provide a better situation for Black Americans than the US, although perhaps in some ways it is no longer so different. But "The idea of Paris as a city that receives blacks with dignity and respect should be considered not just a statement of objective reality (although much evidence supports it), but equally as a conceptual strategy for criticizing continued discrimination in the US. Portraying Paris, a city whose name spells prestige among all Americans, as a haven of tolerance and success for black Americans serves to undermine the racial status quo on the other side of the Atlantic by placing it in an unfavorable international perspective. . . . As long as racial hierarchies remain central to life in America, the importance of the black expatriate experience as a symbolic escape from, and critique of, racism will endure. (300).
Josephine Baker witnessed Black people streaming across the bridge to escape the St. Louis race riots (50).
Sometimes it seemed the entire Harlem Renaissance had been transferred to Paris: Langston Hughes, Claud McKay, Countee Cullen, Walter White, Jean Toomer (went there with Gurdjieff). However, while they appreciated Paris, there was no Black lost generation community in Paris in the 20s - that had to wait until the 50s. (62).
The French American fellowship, founded by Richard Wright and William Rutherford, and including James Baldwin, Leroy Haynes, Ollie Stewart, Jean-Paul Sartre, Claude Bourdet, and Charles Delauney. They protested discrimination at the American Hospital in Paris, demanded US grant a vis to Marxist historian Daniel Guerin, and fought the conviction of Willie McGee (196).
Wright influenced Ousmane Sembane "whose novel The Black Docker owned much to both Nativ eSon and Claud McKay's Banjo. (197).
Write was friends with Jamaican George Padmore, who in 1953 was a political advisor to Kwame Nkrumah. Wright stopped in Sierra Leone, then the Gold Coast, publishing his observations in Black Power. (198).
Baldwin met Wright at Les Deux Magots when he first arrived, but felt "patronized or ignored by the French intellectuals who formed part of Wright's circle." His money ran out and he moved to Belleville, the Harlem of Paris, yet retained some ties with the Left Bank expatriates, he still felt isolated from the Left Bank culture (201). Baldwin b/c estranged from Wright when B criticized Wright in "Everybody's Protest Novel." B/c Wright was under criticism at home for "his politics and for leaving America" it "made it seem that Baldwin was working with those in the American government and literary establishment eager to tarnish the great writer's reputation in order to promote his own." They had a "stormy meeting at the Brasserie Lipp in Saint-Germain-des-Pres" and remained estranged for the rest of their lives (202).
Giovanni's Room as the story of white characters written by a Black man, which Stovall attributes to Paris as "a place where Baldwin could be judged simply as an individual, not as the sum of his various social identities" (205).
Chester Himes book The Lonely Crusade portrayed "union organizing among the kinds of black workers he had met in the Los Angeles shipyards. [It] met with harsh reception from both sides, black and white, in the literary establishment, shocking many with its explicit discussion of politics and sexuality. The Atlantic Monthly commented that 'hate runs through this book like a streak of yellow bile,' whereas Commentary compared it to 'graffito on the walls of public toilets'" (207. Currently reading Revenge Capitalism - surely the hate comment is an example of revenge being projected onto the oppressed, for if hate does run through the book, it's white peoples' hatred of blacks as exemplified by their behavior (207).
Himes wrote a two-volume autobiography of that time.
October 15, 2025
A solid history and a good way for me to understand the history of Paris over the last hundred years. I also appreciate the window into understanding Paris' modern racial make-up and racial tensions from a nuanced perspective.
But 1996 is a long time ago, now, and from the perspective of 2025, the downplay of queerness in some of the Parisian residents is extremely glaring. Stovall deliberately downplays James Baldwin's gayness and his relationships with European MEN. I can understand that the author wants to focus on Baldwin's political organizing. Which would be fine if Stovall didn't spend so much time talking about straight people's spouses. He also lets readers come to their own conclusion about Patrick Kelly's sexuality by mentioning that he died of AIDS. I'm sure that there are other people mentioned in this book whose sexuality has been papered over. From the tone of Stovall's two pages on gay life in Paris for the entirety of the 20th century, it was the place for discreet liaisons rather than a place of community. Which maybe it was for many Black people and maybe it was an avenue that the author did not go down.
But 1996 is a long time ago, now, and from the perspective of 2025, the downplay of queerness in some of the Parisian residents is extremely glaring. Stovall deliberately downplays James Baldwin's gayness and his relationships with European MEN. I can understand that the author wants to focus on Baldwin's political organizing. Which would be fine if Stovall didn't spend so much time talking about straight people's spouses. He also lets readers come to their own conclusion about Patrick Kelly's sexuality by mentioning that he died of AIDS. I'm sure that there are other people mentioned in this book whose sexuality has been papered over. From the tone of Stovall's two pages on gay life in Paris for the entirety of the 20th century, it was the place for discreet liaisons rather than a place of community. Which maybe it was for many Black people and maybe it was an avenue that the author did not go down.
March 22, 2024
"At the end of 1970, health problems led [James Baldwin] to convalesce in the medieval village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence just inland from the bustling Riviera. Baldwin fell in love with the beauty and tranquility of the community and bought a large ramshackle farmhouse on ten acres of land, complete with a view of the Mediterranean in the distance. Baldwin had finally found a place where his soul could rest, and Saint-Paul would serve as his home base for the rest of his days. The villa represented the conclusion of James Baldwin's transformation from poor, agonized child of the Harlem streets to a man of property and prestige in France, and no place had played a greater role in that metamorphosis than Paris.
December 29, 2020
This book is an incredible glimpse into the lives of Black Americans settling in Paris since the early 20th century. Although I was fascinated by the subject matter, I struggled to latch on to the writing style. I would generally consider myself a fast reader, and it took me approximately 6 months to finish this book because I could only read ~10 pages at a time. All that being said, if you’re interested in learning more about the history of African Americans in Paris, this is still definitely the book for you.
June 19, 2019
Interesting and well presented
July 28, 2023
Fairly academic, but informative
March 25, 2024
To p.146
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews