“What is the Black German Experience?”
The Second Annual Black German Society Convention
Napol Wills (Class of 2014)
The Black German Society’s mission is to “document and promote the activities of Black
Germans as reflected in past and present” and “research and record the history of Blacks in
Germany”. With its second annual convention the Society furthered that mission through panels,
film screenings and spoken word performances. The overall theme of the convention was to
explore the current multi-faceted and multi-generational Black German experience.
One of the most informative panels of the convention was titled “Telling our histories:
Reclaiming the Black German Experience”, in which several Black German scholars and authors
discussed their experiences and growing up in Germany. The experiences varied widely, from a
Middle aged woman braving the racialized climate of 1960’s Germany to a young PhD student
learning to accept her blackness in the 1990’s. All of the panelists expressed a longing for
community with other Black Germans, as well as the importance of a shared history and
experience. In other words, the group had spent most of their lives in isolation from other Black
Germans. Such isolation affected their sense of identity, making it hard for them to feel
comfortable in their homeland. However, the convention strove to show through recording their
experiences and meeting one another, Black Germans could continue to create a strong group
identity and support network with one another.
Another important piece of the Black German experience is performance and
representations in media. The Society invited two Black German authors to share their work. The
first piece, a short story, catalogued the fictional meeting in London between a young African
and an older Jamaican. The pair learns that their age and geographical differences don’t have to
be barriers to understanding. It fit well with the overall theme of the conference, in that it is
important for Black Germans to work not only with each but with other groups of the African
Diaspora in order to create a cohesive community. The second piece was a series of spoken word
poem, expressing the author’s frustration about the negative representations of Blacks in
advertising, and the the sense of superiority that some white people view Africans.
There were also two films screened at the convention commemorating the lives of two
figures in the Black German movement and history. The first, “The May Ayim Story” chronicles
the life of the respected poet as she makes her journey to self-identifying as “Afro Deutsche”.
The second film, “Audre Lorde: the Berlin Years” depicts the decade long relationship between
Lorde and Black German women in the late 80’s. She helped Black German women to find one
another and name themselves “Afro- Deutsche” and in return gained a deeper understanding of
herself as an African- American.
Overall, the convention was very eye opening, informative and full of people passionate
about informing the world about the Black German experience. The most important thing I
learned was this: preserving the history of a group means there has to be a level of humility in
telling a story that does not belong to you. So the most important thing that a non-Black German
can do, in attempting to understand the Black German experience, is to listen.