In 2016, Black German Studies celebrates the 30th anniversary of the publication of Farbe bekennen: Afrodeutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte. The result of the encounter of Black German women in Berlin with Afro-Caribbean American activist-poet Audre Lorde in the mid-1980s, this text testifies to the power of transnational collaboration in the assertion of Black agency, as well as to the influence of American feminist and civil rights discourses in the West German context. The truth that the women around Audre Lorde uncovered and voiced about the history of the African diaspora in Germany remain central to Black German Studies today: namely, the acknowledgement that there is no single originary moment for Black Germans, but rather multiple, historically diverse points of origin. Michelle M. Wright’s recent work on what she terms a “Post-War Epistemology” offers Black Diaspora Studies an alternative approach to that of the Middle Passage Epistemology, a narrative focused around the Atlantic slave trade. In the context of reunification and the current migrant crisis, Wright’s paradigm provides a narrative framework that is particularly well-suited to the situation of Black German Studies as it enters its fourth decade.
