Cover image: Detail from Progress of the American Negro by Charles White (1940)
Graphic for Black History Month celebration at Université de Paris 8

For those seeking activities relevant to Black History Month in Paris this year, you have several from which to choose!

I Needed Paris - 1 February 2025

I Needed Paris follows nine middle school photo students from Gordon Parks Academy in Wichita, KS on their Spring 2024 journey to Paris to walk in the footsteps of their school's namesake and re-imagine his fashion, portrait, and street photography during his 1950-1952 tenure as a photographer in LIFE magazine's Paris bureau.

The documentary will be screened at Restaurant 47, 47 rue François Ier, 75008 Paris on February 1, 2025.

RSVP: sistahcircleparis@gmail.com

Black History Month at the Université de Paris 8 - through 5 February 2025

The library at the Université de Paris 8 in Saint-Denis is celebrating Black History Month with a photography exhibition called L’effacement des cimetières noirs aux Etats-Unis (The Erasure of Black Cemeteries in the United States). Works by Pauline Peretz et endika will be featured there.

On February 5, the closing date for the exhibition, the library will host a conference called Des récits et des lieux pour raconter l’histoire africaine-américaine (Stories and Placed to Tell African-American History).  Three professors and university students will discuss slave narratives as sources and tools for scientific mediation; the intertwining of history, contemporary art, and the transatlantic slave trade in memory; and the resurgence of African-American cemeteries in cities.

For more information (in French), click HERE.

James Baldwin Study Day - 7 February 2025

On February 7, 2025, the Giacometti Foundation will host a James Baldwin Study Day entitled Rencontres artistiques : James Baldwin en France (Artistic Encounters: James Baldwin in France).

The foundation has organized this day to open research on the richness of artistic exchanges around Baldwin in France.  It will bring together art historians and Baldwin scholars who will comment upon Baldwin's little known writings about the plastic arts.

Admission is free.

To learn more and to register for this event, click HERE.

Black History Scavenger Hunt (for children) - 15 February 2025

This event is accessible to library members only.

Participants will learn about several important historical figures; then receive tips and tricks for navigating the Library before heading into the stacks to discover more information about Black heroes in American history. Prizes will be given to those who complete the scavenger hunt. Children under the ages of 9 will require an adult chaperone to assist them.

Guillon Lethière, Né à la Guadeloupe - through 17 February 2025

Guillaume Guillon Lethière was a brilliant mixed-race artist from Guadeloupe who has largely been forgotten by the professional art world.

An exhibition at the Louvre, mounted in collaboration with the Clark Art Center of Williamstown, MA, brings him front and center through February 17, 2025.

Read our review of the exhibition HERE.

Wheatley at 250 - 25 February 2025

Phillis Wheatley was the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. Her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in London in 1773.

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of this work, Wheatley at 250: Black Women Poets Re-imagine the Verse of Phillis Wheatley Peters brings together 20 Black female poets to reimagine her legacy and voice.

On Tuesday, February 25, the American Library in Paris will welcome Danielle Legros Georges and Artress Bethany White, co-editors of the collection, and Florence Ladd, novelist and poet, for a conversation about Wheatley’s impact on the literary world and how her work resonates today. Professor and author Trica Keaton will serve as moderator.

The discussion will be available both online and in person.

To register, click HERE.

AND IN BORDEAUX

Screening of Spike Lee's film, Malcolm X - 22 February 2025

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, the Mémoires & Partages network is inviting the public to a weekend of free festivities and commitments around the memory of the fights for freedom. 

This will include a screening of Spike Lee's film, Malcolm X, on Saturday, February 22.

For information (in French), click HERE.