Walking into Paris in Black, a familiar feeling settled over me: a sense of stepping into a story I somehow knew in my bones, despite knowing it was never even taught to me.
Tracing the footsteps of Black Americans who crossed the ocean—sometimes for opportunity, sometimes for oxygen—into a Paris that promised possibility, not perfection, the new exhibition at Chicago‘s DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center is sweeping, emotional and beautifully presented.
It’s a feeling that curator Danny Dunson knows well. He spent the last year and a half excavating its history.
“This was a long effort,” he told me, reflecting on the research and the four-and-a-half-month installation process for the new exhibition that followed. “I’ve always known these stories as a historian, but I didn’t realize how many there were. Once I started pulling them together, I had 120 sources, tons of archives. I realized there were hundreds of names that belonged under one roof.”
The result is as visually lush as it is intellectually rigorous. And it’s deeply, unmistakably Black. The exhibition also features original works from various artists, including Archibald Motley, Augusta Savage, Charles Sebree and more.
Unromantic Truths Behind the Romance
Dunson doesn’t shy away from the complexity of the myth and reality of Black life in Paris.
“Paris was not a 100% racism-free place,” he said plainly. “They still encountered things. But it was so much less than what they faced in the U.S. during the height of Jim Crow.”
That nuance matters. The exhibit presents an accurate portrayal of reality. Paris was both a sanctuary and a stage, a site of artistic explosion and cultural contradiction. Black Americans thrived there because they were considered exotic, talented, and desirable—and because they were wielding their American passports, accents, dollars and creative influence like armor.
“What fascinates me,” Dunson continued, “is that with Black Americans, there’s this fantasy people still have. If I call you and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to Paris,’ your reaction is, ‘Oh, I love Paris!’ That fantasy was built by a system of historical happenings.”
He pauses, knowing exactly what he wants to challenge. “But it wasn’t the same for Black people from colonized countries in Africa or the Caribbean. Their treatment was different. Their story is a separate exhibition.”
A Renaissance That Didn’t Require Riches—Just Resilience
In the days leading up to our conversation, social media was ablaze with shock that the Harlem Renaissance coincided with the Great Depression. Dunson just shook his head when I mentioned it.
“If I had a dime for every time people are shocked about something historical,” he laughed. “People think the Harlem Renaissance was about being wealthy. They don’t understand that much of that wealth came from white patronage. Black people were still struggling. But we’ve always adorned ourselves. We’ve always made a way out of zero.” And that creates a bridge to Paris: movement—physical, artistic, and spiritual.
“What I’m arguing,” he said, “is that the real migration starts in the mind. You don’t even have to move your body. Your mind relocates somewhere else. That’s a survival technology we created.”
He considers this Afrofuturism before the term existed. Black people having the ability to imagine themselves into new realities long before they physically chase them.
The Known Names—and the Ones History Almost Lost
The exhibit features giants: Josephine Baker, James Baldwin, and Langston Hughes. But Dunson lights up when he talks about the lesser-known figures who shaped the cross-Atlantic cultural exchange.
He tells me about Donald Hubbard, a native of Gary, Indiana, Dunson’s hometown, who became one of the first known African American commercial shoe designers for a major company and spent most of his life designing in Paris. “There were pictures of him looking out of his Paris window, this tall young man in the late ’60s. Incredible,” Dunson said.
Then there’s Leroy Haynes, a Morehouse grad and WWII vet who opened the first soul food restaurant in Europe. “When you’re abroad, it’s cute for the first week and a half,” Dunson laughed. “Then you feel homesick. How wonderful to turn the corner and find soul food—our food—in Paris.” Haynes’ restaurant became a magnet for everyone: Frank Sinatra, James Baldwin and countless expats who needed a taste of home.
Dunson is far from done telling those stories.
“There were Black-owned Airbnbs before Airbnbs. Barbershops. Gyms. Cabarets run by Black women set their own value. These people were trailblazers.”
A special nod was also given to Eunice Johnson, founder and director of the EBONY Fashion Fair, who spent immense time in Paris and partnered with Yves Saint Laurent and other designers. The goal was to get clothing for the fair.
“She had a strong relationship with Paris,” Dunson said, noting her work with Andre Leon Tally and Beth Ann Hardison, among others.
A Legacy of Boundless Imagination
When I asked Dunson what he hopes Paris in Black shifts in the way we remember Black global history, especially in a moment when that history is being distorted and erased, his voice softened.
“Creating exhibitions like this is a lonely process,” he admitted. “But bringing out all these names—known and obscure—lets our young people know how limitless their opportunities can be. If they could do it against those barriers, you can do it too.”
He hopes the exhibit encourages a mindset shift: one rooted in self-worth, creativity, and a refusal to accept the limits placed around us. “I’m not saying everyone should pack up and move to Paris,” he said. “The message is: think about your self-value and the walls you’ve been hitting—and find ways to go around them. That starts in your mind.”
A Living Exhibit for a Vibrant People
Paris in Black will remain installed through February 2027. Dunson plans to update it continually—with new programming, new archival materials and new stories that expand the connective tissue of global Black creativity.
He smiled when I told him the interview left me with chills. “This is why I do it,” he said. “To advocate for our community. To center us. To remind us who we’ve always been.”
In that way, Paris in Black is more than an exhibition. It’s a mirror, a map and an invitation: to remember, to imagine, to move.