Walking & Bus Tours - Discover Famous Places in Paris-Touched by Black History

"I got to see where the likes of Josephine Baker, all the jazz and Blues greats played and lived, and the great writers including Richard Wright and Langston Hughes.
On a different tour we got to see the African side of Paris and visited an African Farmers Market, had a delicious meal at a Senegalese restaurant. When I return to Paris I will take the tour again. There was so much to see and learn about you couldn't possibly get it all in one tour. Overall very educational, entertaining and enlightening.
Nnegest Likke, Director & Writer of 'Phat Girlz'

Travel the backstreets to retrace where Chester Himes dreamed up prize-winning detective novels, Richard Wright jousted with French intellectuals, and Gordon Heath strummed his folk guitar. Bud Powell’s wife served up home food here, Lois Mailou Jones painted her way across the city and Henry O. Tanner painted his way into the Louvre.
Also: Ira Aldridge, Hale Woodruff, Meta Vaux Warrick, Miles Davis, Claude McKay, Victor Séjour and more.

This area is home to bookshops of all cultures and tastes, the venerable Sorbonne University, art house cinemas, existential cafes and the city’s original art gallery district. Enlightening.

Duration: 2 ½ hrs   Available walking; by mini-bus for groups up to 14.
                                                                                           Reserve

                          Tour #2 The Entertainers
                         Lower Montmartre / Pigalle

Discover how African and African-American cultures met here for the first time and birthed a cultural and artistic revolution in France.

Between the Moulin Rouge to the north and Bricktop’s cabaret to the south, this entertainment district became the birthplace of Europe-centered jazz after WWI. Thanks to the joie de vivre brought in by Southern Syncopated orchestras and the Harlem Hellfighers, New Orleans saxophonist/clarinetist Sidney Bechet became King, Josephine Baker the Queen.
Also: Langston Hughes, Bud Powell, Florence Mills, Leroy Haynes Soul Food Restaurant, Surrealist painters, African art and more.

Black was indeed Beautiful in the 1920s.

Duration: 2 ½ hours    Available walking and by bus for groups up to 14.
                                                                                           Reserve
                         Tour #3   Africa In Paris
                    Château Rouge / La Goutte d'Or

Between the KFC, the bountiful fresh fish in the open-air market, the mosques, the hair shops, tiny businesses, and new mega stores like Virgin Records, Barbès smells, looks, and lives like no other quartier in the city.

Discover the traditional home to African and Arabic immigrants. This area brings you as close to French colonial history and contemporary relations as you’ll get without heading into the suburbs. Fascinating.

Duration: 2 hours      Available walking only.                   Reserve

Walk 1, 2, or make it a Black Paris day with all 3 of our tours. Not only will you gain valuable insight into African-American expatriate and Diaspora life but also a background on the French history that shaped their time and experiences.

Beyond the stories, each tour brings a multi-layered understanding of the individual quartiers. Facades and inhabitants may have changed but the influence on today's Black community remains timeless. So much to discuss as we walk.

If time, mobility, and weather are a concern, opt for the comfort and scope of a bus tour.

                                       Take All 3

Make it an African/American day! Take all three for full day immersion into history and present day Black Paris.We'll stop a delicious African meal before Tour #3. Transportation and meal cost not included.   Reserve

                                     The Combo
You want to see it all but 2 tours is too much walking? Combining bus and walking, you can still browse the shops, cafes, bookstores of the lively Latin Quarter and classy St.Germain-des-Pres, then board a luxury mini-bus to weave the hilly streets of Lower Montmartre where jazz and Josephine reigned.

Along the way traverse the Louvre courtyard, sweep past the Obelisque and the Opera House, and glimpse the Grand Department Stores. Perfect for families and groups up to 7 people.
Duration: 3 1/2 hours.                                                       Reserve

In 4 hours you take in the highlights of Black History in Paris by bus. The tour winds through the Latin Quarter, St.Germain-des-Pres then across to the right bank, along the Champs-Elysees where the 369th Harlem Infantry regiment marched after WWI. Up the hilly streets of Black Montmartre Sidney Bechet jazzed; the ladies Josephine, Bricktop, Alberta Hunter, and Florence Mills sang; Gene Bullard kept the bar open, and black business owners thrived.

The added feature of the bus includes sites too far afield to include in the walking tour, such as the Place Josephine Baker and the Madeleine church, site of Josephine Baker’s full military funeral.

Tour in luxury air-conditioned busses with panoramic windows hold 7, 14, & 30+ passengers. Hotel pick-up and drop off point of your choice.

The tour is commented throughout by our informative guides, who will also point out the must-see monuments and markers along the way. Request quote