Black History Tour in Paris Remembers and Honors 4 African-American Writers who Died in November

Paris-based black writers Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Chester Himes and William Gardner Smith all died during the month of November and Walking The Spirit Tours honors their Paris experience with in-depth, lively tours through their neighborhoods.

Paris, France (PRWEB) November 19, 2007 -- Walking The Spirit Tours is walking visitors back to the 1940s, 50s and 60s for a timely and ongoing celebration of four Paris-based black writers who died in the month of November.

Through the Latin Quarter and St.Germain-des-Pres neighborhoods, the Writers, Artists & Intellectuals tour retraces challenging and victorious experiences of African-American expatriates Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Chester Himes and William Gardner Smith. Participants get to walk past their homes, stop at cafes where they wrote and socialized, take the streets they rambled along.

Unique to Walking The Spirit Tours and by special arrangement, we will accompany visitors to the burial site of Richard Wright in Paris.

One participant, La Quietta Hardy-Campbell, had this to say: "The tour was wonderful and informative and Ealy is very competent and knowledgeable. He is a great griot and weaves in facts and tidbits of history that revealed the flavor of the Black Intelligentsia in Paris."

First stop is down a narrow cobbled street where Chester Himes penned his first detective novel, 'For The Love of Imabelle'. It won him an important French literary prize, made him rich, and later became the movie 'A Rage in Harlem' starring Forrest Whitaker and Robin Givens. Tour participants hear his particular viewpoint on the French and can gaze up at his new penthouse apartment where he played host to many notable African-Americans including Malcolm X. Himes died in Spain on November 12, 1984.

Richard Wright reached the highest social status of the black writers in Paris on the strength of his groundbreaking novel, 'Native Son', and the French admiration for his intellect. Tour participants follow Wright's footsteps from his meetings at the home of Gertrude Stein, past the club where he debated philosophy with French intellectuals, to where he wrote his essay 'Why I Chose Exile'. At the end comes the wonderful opportunity to photograph the honorary plaque outside his former home. Wright died of mysterious causes in Paris on November 28, 1960.

Just behind Wright's home still stands what was a meeting place for the radicals and rebels of the black and white American expatriate community, including William Gardner Smith, a journalist with the Agence France Press news agency. Of all the African-American writers, this Philadelphia native's story provides visitors an unflinching yet introspective view on French politics, as he wrote extensively on the explosive France-Algeria conflict of the 1950s and 60s. Gardner Smith died in France on November 5, 1974.

James Baldwin set out for Paris on November 11, 1948 and there wrote personal novels such as 'Giovanni's Room'. As participants stand outside his cold-water flat, they hear grim details of the poverty he endured and wrote of in his brilliant essays 'Notes Of A Native Son'. The tour also explores the art-filled café where Baldwin met up with black painter Beauford Delaney and participants can have a drink in his honor at one of his nearby favorite cafés on Boulevard St.Germain. He died in St. Paul-de-Vence, in southern France in the night of November 30, 1987.

Another group leader, Kim Canavan-Jones of Jones International, was enchanted with the tour. "We had lots of fun and we all learned something new."

For further enjoyment, our tour guides draw on historical facts, lively anecdotes, authentic documents and photographs to aid visitors in understanding the French, American, and Diaspora politics and social conditions of the time.

Walking in the footsteps of expatriate black writers, artists, entertainers, and musicians in Paris, participants become instrumental in the remembrance and keeping alive the long-standing cultural exchange between Black America and France.

For additional information and to receive a brochure contact: walkthespirit@netscape.net

About The Company:
Walking The Spirit Tours offers the most enlightening glimpse of black Paris of yesterday and today. Their three tours cover: Writers, Artists & Intellectuals in the Latin Quarter/St.Germain-des-Pres, The Entertainers in Lower Montmartre, and Africa In Paris. A comprehensive bus tour and an itinerary planning service are also available. The company was created in 1994 by then Paris resident and black Paris expert Julia Browne. All tours are offered year-round to individuals and groups.

For further information:
Contact:
Julia Browne
CEO & Founder
Walking The Spirit Tours
519.497-0933 or 519.208-7663
www.walkingthespirit.com

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