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RIA CHEATOM, IKA HÜGEL-MARSHALL, JASMIN EDING, AND JUDY GUMMICH

In Audre’s Footsteps: Transnational Kitchen Table Talk is a valuable addition to the growing number of publications on Black life and history in Germany. This collection of conversations with Berlin-based Black women and women of color political and social protagonists explicitly traces the influences Audre Lorde had on activists and Black German organizations.

We, activists and founding women of ADEFRA: Black Women in Germany and partly also the Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (Initiative Black People in Germany, ISD), had the chance to get to know Audre directly, experience the work she did in Germany, discuss it with her, and exchange ideas. These encounters gave us strength for our commitments, raising our voices, and demanding our respect and our rights. It was Audre who gave important impulses for the emergence of ADEFRA and ISD and who continuously accompanied and supported our paths throughout the years and during her periods of residence in Berlin. Also, without Audre’s effectiveness, Farbe bekennen: Afrodeutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out) perhaps would not have existed.

Today, it has become a matter of course in the German-speaking media to speak of “Afro-Germans” or “Black Germans,” but in the mid-1980s, such formulations were met with incomprehension and rejection. Audre made a significant contribution to this change by underscoring our right to define ourselves. We were all the more pleased, then, when Heidi asked us to write the “Foreword” to this book, which is being published, figuratively speaking, in Audre’s “footsteps.”

Since the mid-1980s, there has been interest and repeated inquiries from U.S. scholars and students about Black history in Germany, especially in Berlin. We have given interviews and provided access to our archives, and often, we never heard from those scholars and students again. For this reason, we were initially a bit hesitant when we received requests from Heidi in 2013 to speak with her students from the U.S. about the beginnings of our Black movement and Audre Lorde’s influence. Ika received that first request along with Dagmar Schultz, the filmmaker of Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984-1992, managing director and owner of the Orlanda publishing house for many years, and co-editor of Farbe bekennen. A year later, Heidi invited Ika to discuss her book Invisible Woman: Growing Up Black in Germany (1993) and Dagmar to screen her film. They were also joined by Ria. So, the students got to know another part of Audre Lorde’s life that often does not get much attention in the U.S.

Heidi then had the idea of pursuing Audre’s trail in Berlin with her students to experience what influence Audre had on the Afro-German community and what significance it still has for the younger generation of (not only) Black activists in Germany. This is how she and the students got to know us ADEFRA women and other activists in various Berlin communities. In addition to talking to us, they visited various organizations and projects, including the Joliba Interkulturelles Netzwerk in Berlin e.V., the Schwules Museum*, Reach Out-Ariba e.V. (a counseling center for victims of right-wing and racist violence), S.U.S.I. (Intercultural Women’s Centre), Each One Teach One e.V. (including, among other things, a Black history archive and a project for Black youth), and ISD.

We were surprised how well-informed her students were and how motivated they were to learn about Black German history. They were very interested in finding out how Afro-Germans/Black people and other minoritized groups in Germany live in the white majority society. They also wanted to know how we fight and resist racism and all forms of discrimination today and how we create empowerment spaces for our communities. In this way, the voices of the marginalized, stories about their struggles, stories about resistance, empowerment, and intersectionality could be conveyed directly. Thanks to this wide range of encounters, Heidi is able to familiarize the students with Germany’s diversity.

Many years have now passed, and Heidi is still interested in the further development of the Black Diasporic movement in Germany and in transnational exchange. She remains committed to ensuring students broaden their view of Germany with its still too obscure Black history, especially because many in the U.S. who are familiar with the work of Audre Lorde often do not know her impact and the significance of her Berlin years. It is precisely these lessons that Heidi makes possible for her students through direct experiences and encounters.

It is impressive how much dedication Heidi teaches and encourages her students to reflect on and grapple with what they have heard and seen. This approach enabled and continues to enable them to experience narratives that cannot be found in the usual history and textbooks in Germany or the U.S. The title of her course, “Hidden Spaces, Hidden Narratives: Intersectionality Studies in Berlin,” precisely captures this ambition.

However, we have also learned from her students, for example, what it means to live in the U.S., to have a different cultural background or to be discriminated against because of origin or skin color. We are very much looking forward to the next meeting, so we can continue the mutually enriching exchange with Heidi and her students.

It is a great tribute to Audre, but also to us activists of the Black German movement, that Heidi continues to cross the Atlantic and follow in Audre’s footsteps. This book contributes to ensuring that they remain both visible and tangible.