The last time I set foot on French Soil was in the summer of 1991, as a Professional Tennis Player, starting in out in my tennis career against the big boys in the tennis game. I came through Paris with my older brother, Sekou, on our way to Spain, but playing a couple of tennis tournaments in the South of France before our Spanish adventure for that summer--On our return again, we made a stop through the incomparable French Capital, Paris!
I'm making my return to Paris nearly 22 years later, with an incredible Professor of Africana Studies at The University of Arizona, Dr. Carter. Dr. Carter specializes and teaches the evolutionary history of African American Literature at the U of A; his emphasis is on the Jazz Age, the Harlem Renaissance Writers, and all the contemporary African American Writers of the 20th and 21st Century. Dr. Carter is the epitome of a teacher! The kind of teacher who is competent in his field, but is also willing to take his students on a quest, even, he does not feel at ease about. Now, that is a teacher! He is so comfortable in his knowledge of his craft, but without being fearful of what he does not know. Therefore, he leads his students in the quest for scholarship, for information (The authentic, truthful and factual information.): A teacher who takes his students into the dark, "Unknown World of the Unknowable!") This is how combat arms soldiers, in the best combat arms units of the United States Army defines the unknown in combat. Dr. Carter is this kind of teacher! What a precious, generous, and giving prince of a man! Dr. Carter is chronicling the lives of famous African Americans who called "The City of Lights", Home! Since segregation was in full force in the United States, many of these talented individuals from diverse fields and backgrounds, were welcomed in France with open arms, and celebrated like famous French high achievers. Dr. Carter brings his knowledge of modern technology and its many creative modes of presentation, to help his students present the stories of these titanic African Americans to the next generation: Men and Woman such as, the founder of the NAACP, W.E.B. Dubois; the Jazz Saxaphonist and Clarinetist, founder of the "New Orleans Style of Jazz", Sidney Bechet; the beautiful and incomparable dancer, and performer, Josephine Baker; the writer of "Black Boy", and defender of African American Culture and its struggles in America, Richard Wright; their are several others, singers, doctors, specialists of sculpture, Civil Rights Leaders, poets, playwrights, stage and theater actors. All this massive talents of African America took refuge in Paris, fleeing oppression, slavery, murder, and segregation. Dr. Carter is helping all of the students on this Paris trip, understand and appreciate the honorable contributions of these pioneers of African American Culture and by extension the whole entire African World.
After a 15 hour plane ride from Tucson, AZ, via Dallas, TX, I landed in the historical airport of Charles DeGaulle. It goes without saying, that DeGaulle is the aristocratic general, leader, and a statesman who saved the honor of France, by standing up to Nazi Germany during the occupation of his country in WWII. It's a reminder of this contribution to his beloved France, that every single visitor coming via and to Paris, transit through an airport bearing his name.
Paris is one of the oldest inhabited great cities in the history of the whole world, and it has continuously played a leading role in the affairs of the world in good and bad times all throughout this history. At times, the political leaders of the French, residing in Paris, the French Capital managed this responsibility with flying colors, at other times, they failed at it miserably! In that spirit, Dr. Carter, the fearless teacher, took us on a historical walk-through inside and around the great capital, passing while paying our respects to the historical figures of the French people, and the monuments built to honor their sacred memory: The statue of Charlemagne; La Cathedrale De Notre Dame; Le Louvre; L'avenue Des Champs Elysees; L'Arc De Triomphe; La Bastille; La Rive Gauche et La Rive Droite; Montparnasse; Montmartre; Rue Des Ecoles, La Place St. Michel; La Tour Eiffel; Le Jardin de la Tuilleries; and La Sorbonne.
My father was a student here during the 1930s, when France controlled French West Africa. I came back as an American, with an American Professor, and an ex-combat arms soldier. After having being born in Guinea, which was formerly part of French west Africa. What a strange world! I would even go as far as to say with a saying from my native Africa, which states? "The more we live and continue to live, the more we find ourselves walking through the steps of the ancestors, repeating the same trials and tribulations as them, albeit, differently, but ultimately all the same!"
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