February is Black History Month around the world. What began in the USA in 1926 at Negro History Week has long-since developed into a global movement of Afro-diasporic stories of remembrance. This month of commemoration has also gained in significance in Germany since the 1990s. The history of Black activism in Germany, however, is complex and goes back much further into history and, in terms of remembrance, is also shaped by the German-German division.
East Germany officially claimed an antiracist state ideology for itself. The socialist state was happy to present itself as a champion for the rights of repressed peoples and in solidarity with young postcolonial countries of the global south such as Angola, Mozambique or Vietnam. In East Germany itself, however, Black people continued to experience structural as well as everyday racism. Despite official state protection, they experienced racially motivated violence, exclusion and discrimination. Self-organizations of so-called contract laborers and, since the 1980s, of the young generation of Black East German citizens became important spaces of support and networks for informal knowledge in many places despite state bans and restrictions. They existed in smaller cities, but also especially in centers such as Leipzig, Dresden and East Berlin.
West Germany offered a different picture. Beginning in the 1980s, grassroots movements developed here, such as ADEFRA – a Black queer feminist collective, formerly Afrodeutsche Frauen, now Schwarze Frauen* in Deutschland and the Initiative Schwarzer in Deutschland (the Initiative of Black People in Germany, ISD, formerly Initiative Schwarzer Deutscher). These organizations could act relatively freely and dedicated themselves to the rights and visibility of Black people. They sustainably shaped the discourse and laid the foundations for many initiatives that still exist today. In their meetings, events and workshops, made daily racism and racially motivated violence in West Germany able to be discussed and developed positive self-designations.
The period of German Reunification was a decisive moment for Black people and people of color in both German nations. In eastern Germany especially, the increasing racist violence after 1989 lead to a situation that later became known as the “baseball bat years”. The years of transformation after the German Reunification were also, however, marked by Black people from both Germanies finding each other and strengthening their self-image in relation to the African continent and within an Afro-diasporic community, mostly in the two self-organizations ADEFRA and ISD. This also took place especially through the organization of events for Black History Month, which provided an important platform to research, spread and adopt Black identities, historical presences in Germany and their stories in terms of memorial history. Black History Month has been regularly celebrated by the Black communities over the last 30 years and is for both the communities themselves as well as the majority society. This makes it more than just a month of remembering; it is an appeal to the entire society to deal more with the past and present of racism and to work actively toward a more just future.
February, which is increasingly receiving a more strongly intersectional orientation through the influence of Black queer feminist activists, makes this clearer and clearer in titles like Black Herstory/Ourstory Month. This means that it has already became a memorial instrument that not only envisions the history of Black people within the country as well as in a global context politically as well as societally during the shortest month of the year, but also especially intensifies the efforts to end structural as well as everyday racism.
