THE GLOBAL AFRICAN COMMUNITY
T R A V E L N O T E S
THE D'ZERT CLUB IN PARIS "One for all and all for one."
--Alexander Dumas, pere
It is now quickly moving towards late July 2005 and I have just recently returned to the United States from the suburbs of Paris, France. I went there during the final week in May to deal with personal matters, to study French, and to continue my search for the African presence in Europe, including France. It was an excellent trip and extremely successful, and while I am a bit melancholy about returning to the United States I know that I will be back in France soon to do it all over again.
One of the great highlights of my visit to France came in early July when Zawadi Sagna and I escorted the d'Zert Club during their tour of "Black Paris." The d'Zert Club, founded by Ali and Helen Salahuddin, is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania based organization several years old that focuses largely on building character, expanding the vision, and elevating the aspirations of African-American youth.
I first met brother Ali about eighteen months ago during one of my periodic lecture tours to Philadelphia through the efforts of the outstanding young scholar Mukassa Africa. Ali impressed me immediately as a brilliant young Black man with a great vision for African people. Indeed, at the time he was working to send several hundred African-Americans on educational/cultural tours to Egypt and Ghana. All that I could do was nod my approval at these efforts and express my ardent desire to get on board and participate. So while in Paris, we had our first real opportunity to work together and the entire experience culminated with smiles all around.
The d'Zert Club trip to Paris began Saturday, July 2 with my participation coming on the three day period starting, interestingly enough, on Monday, July 4 (US independence day). Through a series of phone calls and emails Ali asked me to give the group two to three days of my time including a lecture and guided tour. This is the kind of request that I live for and I responded with alacrity telling him that "this is what I would do and where I would go if it were me." It was Ali's turn to nod approval and after some serious research this is what we came up with for the thirty-seven people in the d’Zert Club “Black Paris” group.
Not surprisingly, my part of the Black Paris tour began with the Louvre. The group had already had an introduction to the general and African-American aspects of Paris upon their arrival. They did a quick visit to the Eiffel Tower, cruised the Seine, and heard all about the life of the fabulous Josephine Baker. I truly love Josephine Baker, but all along I envisioned something far more grandiose and much more ancient for the Black Paris tour and I thought that the Louvre was the best place to start.
The Palace du Louvre was erected as a fortress early in the thirteenth century and reconstructed during the middle of the sixteenth century for use as a royal residence. In 1793 it was turned into a national museum. In addition to its vast collection of European art dating from the past few hundred years (including Leonardo Da Vinchi's "Mona Lisa"), it also contains a huge array of artifacts from early Greece, Italy, Western Asia, and the Nile Valley. Indeed, it features a modern glass pyramid at the museum's entrance and the museum itself contains one of the largest Nile Valley collections in the world, and this was the focus of the d'Zert Club visit.
As it turned out, the Egyptian collection in the Louvre alone is so large that I was only able to show a small fraction of it. And, for once, I discussed not only the history of ancient Egypt but broadened the overview to include aspects of culture and religion. I divided the d'Zert Club into two groups and in the much too brief sessions that we had they received full doses of information.
After a half-day at the Louvre we had a wonderful lunch at a Togolese restaurant (we wanted to recycle African dollars whenever possible) and then returned, full and happy, to the hotel for my formal lecture. For the first time in my life I gave what I hoped would be a fairly comprehensive lecture on the African presence in France from the earliest times. And, at the risk of sounding immodest, I was very, very good! At least I (and I admit that I am decidedly biased) thought that I was. I discussed African people as the first inhabitants of France, the transformation of those Africans during the various glaciation periods, Black Virgins, the Moors, Black knights, the presence of Africans among the early French nobility, the presence in France of enslaved Africans, distinguished French men of African descent (especially the Chevalier de St. Georges and the Dumas family) and outstanding African-American and African-Caribbean visitors to France like the boxer Jack Johnson, entertainer Josephine Baker, the writer Langston Hughes, historian J.A. Rogers, the one and only Marcus Garvey, and novelist Richard Wright. I told them about Cheikh Anta Diop and Frantz Fanon in Paris, and then wrapped it up by talking about the various communities of African people in France today.
Day two with the d'Zert Club in Paris started at the Place de la Concorde where the distinguished film maker and photographer Bob Lott captured the group for posterity with a group picture. Directly in the center of the Place de la Concorde stands a 3300-year-old pink granite obelisk of Ramses the Great--outstanding African king of ancient Egypt's nineteenth Dynasty. It is always good to see things African and this was especially good because Ramses was no ordinary person. Indeed, he made the name Ramses synonymous with kingship for two centuries after his death.
The Ramses obelisk, taken away from Egypt in 1831, is deeply incised, extremely well preserved, and sits between the Arc de triomphe (the construction of which began in 1806 early in the reign of Emperor Napoleon) and the garden park called the Tuileries where over two centuries ago stood the guillotine that lopped off the heads of Marie-Antoinette, Danton, and Robespierre. From the Place de la Concorde the Eiffel Tower is in plain view, and on both sides of the obelisk sit large fountains surrounding double sets of black statues said to represent the eight largest cities in France.
From the Place de la Concorde we passed by Notre Dame Cathedral. The Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris, considered a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, is at the very center of Paris and was built directly over an ancient temple of the African goddess Isis. Inside the cathedral itself, try as we might, we could find nothing discernibly African and were forced to content ourselves with the building’s historic location.
Just a short distance from Notre Dame Cathedral lies the Pantheon, one of my favorite buildings in the whole of Paris. It was commissioned in 1750 and completed in 1789. Two years later, the Constituent Assembly converted it into a secular mausoleum for what they considered “the great men of the era of French history.”
My interest in the Pantheon began almost three years ago when I read that the African French writer par excellence Alexander Dumas, pere was being interred there. The Pantheon also contains a series of marvelous murals including an excellent depiction of what I believe are Ethiopian soldiers engaged in the defense of Jerusalem against the Christian Crusaders in the year 1099.
Alexander Dumas (1802-1870), who lived a near-legendary life, is one of three outstanding Africans to bear that name in nineteenth century France. The first is General Alexander Dumas (1762-1806), called “Alexander the Greatest.” He is the father of the great writer, was born in Haiti and moved to France. The son of the great writer is Alexander Dumas, fils (1824-1895). This Dumas is called the “remaker of the modern French stage.“ He is the author of Camille and became president of the French Academy (“the highest possible intellectual honor for a Frenchman”) and the recipient of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor.
Alexander Dumas, pere is the author of such immortal works as The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Black Corsican, and The Black Tulip. I got a wonderful story about Dumas a few weeks ago from the superb Ibrahim Hannibal/Alexander Pushkin scholar from Benin Dr. Dieudonne Gnammankou. He informed me that the fantastic African Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge once gave a performance of Othello at the palace of Versailles with Dumas sitting in the front row. Gnammankou told me that the performance was of such a superlative nature that Dumas leapt upon the stage and embraced Aldridge in a enormous hug and exclaimed that "I too am a Negro!"
It was my third trip to the Pantheon, as it seems now that whenever I come to Paris Dumas’ voice calls out to me to pay him a visit. Dumas’ sarcophagus lies just between those of his friend, writer Victor Hugo, and writer Emile Zola. On display just outside the crypt is a copy of the cover of Claude Ribbes’ excellent book on Alexander Dumas’ father, General Alexander Dumas, emblazoned with a reproduction of the elder Dumas looking both heroic and quite African. With all of that, however, sister Zawadi and I noticed on our visit to the crypt prior to the arrival of the d’Zert Club that although Hugo and Zola had flowers placed on top of their great stone coffins that Dumas’ was without any such floral adornments. We were determined to rectify that. So when we returned, with the members of the d’Zert Club right behind us, we engaged in a small but respectful and important, we thought, ceremony where we entered the tomb and placed two bouquets of flowers on Dumas’ sarcophagus. We both photographed and videotaped the whole affair and then Zawadi and I gave a brief lecture on the three Dumas with the Pantheon staff and a number of European tourists looking on with expressions that seemed to reflect amazement mixed with alarm.
We must have been inspired because just a few meters from Dumas’ tomb we noticed for the first time inscriptions dedicated to other Africans. These other Africans include Louis Delgres (1766-1802), who said that I would "Rather die than be a slave" before he blew himself up with three-hundred of his men in Matouba (Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe) in May 1802 when he saw that they were going to be captured by French. And just near the Delgres’ inscription is posted an inscription dedicated to the famous African patriot and Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743-1803). We were all quite moved by all of this and even had a sense of making history. We were excited and very proud of ourselves and hoped that our great African Ancestors were pleased with our self-assured exuberance and celebration and recognition of their storied existence.
Now it was time to visit some bookstores and the two that we selected to call upon were only a few blocks from the Pantheon. The first was Presence Africaine, founded in 1948 and the first African bookstore in France. I am sad to say that we were treated rather coldly that day and were looked at with something approaching disdain by two white women employees who blew smoke in our direction. After a quick exit from Presence Africaine we walked just a couple buildings away and showed the group where Senegalese Egyptologist Cheikh Anta Diop lived when he wrote the hallmark work Negro Nations and Culture in the early 1950s. Right there on the sidewalk in front of the building I gave the background to the life and works of this incredible African scholar and activist.
Finally, that morning, we walked just across the street to L’Harmattan Bookstore, a Canadian owned booked that specializes in African books. Although not African owned both the African employees and white management seemed delighted to see us and made up to some extent for the rude treatment that we received in the African-owned Presence Africaine. Rather ironic, don’t you think?
The late afternoon’s highlight occurred in a quiet chapel in a serene setting in the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine where stands the largest Black Virgin image I have so far laid eyes on. She is called the Black Virgin of Paris and consists of a two meters high standing statue (I believe made of marble) of a smiling Black woman holding the Christ child (the infant wears closely cropped nappy blond hair) and wielding a kind of wand or scepter capped by the fleur de lys--symbol of the French monarchy. Atop her head sits a gold crown embedded with precious stones. The Black Virgin statue is dressed in a gown of rich red, blue, and white colors. The Christ child himself is holding a gold cross and the entire image is believed to be about five hundred years old. It seemed that on this day that an overwhelming aura of peace permeated the entire atmosphere and I confess that we seemed both captivated and pleased by the presence and mysticism and mere idea of a Black woman being in a position of such overwhelming power and majesty.
As if one Black Virgin statue in France were not enough, we began our third and last day with the d’Zert Club in Paris with a visit to Chartres. Up to this trip I had been using the term "Black Madonna" but here the expression "Black Virgin" is more common. These are considered to be miracle working images. Their miracle working powers are attributed to their blackness and their veneration circles the globe.
Chartres is an old and quiet little town about eighty-five kilometers southwest of Paris. It was my second trip to Chartres and what we found in the ancient cathedral were four Black Virgin images, the most notable of which is called Our Lady of the Pillar. This is an image, about a meter high, of a Black Virgin standing on a pillar holding the infant Jesus. Both the Virgin and Child are colored a very dark brown and are wearing white robes embroidered with gold. They are highly venerated, especially among Catholics, and I confess that several of us, out of respect, got down on both knees and whispered our prayers. And, naturally, we took a lot of photos.
The cathedral at Chartres is a large and magnificent edifice more than eight hundred years old possessing marvelous original blue stained glass windows, at least two of which have Black Virgin figures right in the center. A copy of an original Black Virgin statue stands
in a crypt underneath the main cathedral.To make the trip complete, sister Zawadi pointed out to the group that carved on prominent lintel blocks of the cathedral were the statues of two African men. The most notable of these figures is an African soldier drawing his sword at the Judgment of Solomon. It is dated at almost seven hundred years of age. Another image depicts a kneeling African man, perhaps a Moor. The soldier's face is painted black and both figures have tightly curled hair.
I enjoyed the members of the d'Zert Club very much and, now, on our bus trip back to Paris, everybody was laughing and talking and joking and all excited about what we had seen so far. As with any successful tour people begin eventually to bond and feel a little closer. We had now reached that point and were really relaxing and stretching out. And on this last bus ride sister Zawadi and I tried to give all of the information that we could muster, and with a bit of sadness too knowing that we had only a few hours of our tour left.
Our journey with the d’Zert Club in Paris came to end at the Pompidou Center, described as “the most successful art and culture centre in the world.” We had made arrangements here for the group to visit the contemporary African art exhibit called “Africa Remix.” We had started the Black Paris tour with ancient Africa at the Louvre and ended with contemporary Africa at the Pompidou.
Yes, I enjoyed the d’Zert Club in Paris and I really liked Ali and Helen and Bob and Jackie Lott and the entire ensemble. And I think that they must have enjoyed me too for I am now rushing to get ready to join them in Egypt as a lecturer beginning this weekend. They are an exciting group poised to make history and I hope to work them for a very long time.
See you on the next tour. Merci beau coup!
You can contact the d'Zert Club at Dzertclub@aol.com. You can contact African translator and activist Zawadi Sagna at Zawadi.Sagna@laposte.net or ZawadiSagna@yahoo.fr.
Copyright © 1998 Runoko Rashidi. All rights reserved.
Posted/Revised: July 27, 2005
Webpage design: Kenneth Ritchards