Mobilizing Black Germany: Afro-German Women and the Making of a Transnational Movement by Tiffany N. Florvil (review)

Mobilizing Black Germany is part of the Black Internationalism Series edited by Keisha Blain and Quito Swan. Tiffany Florvil's monograph covers the 1980s/90s rise of Black consciousness and collectives in Germany. Florvil shows how Black communities have previously forged connections within the borders of Germany and beyond by drawing on networks of kinship, intellectualism, and internationalism. Her interdisciplinary work blends history, literary studies, journalism, and archive studies. The monograph documents grassroots activism that is often not credited to Black communities in Germany.

Florvil argues that everyday Black German women are quotidian intellectuals who "retrieved and shared Black diasporic narratives, engendering epistemic interventions in Germany" (64). Within this framework, Florvil centers Black Queer women in the movement. Florvil recognizes the work that Black Germans have been doing and continue to do against the backdrop of scholarship that favors published authors, thereby ignoring the work of Black Germans, as it is often illegible to traditional academic sources. This book fits in with recent work on Black transnationalism, in contemporary German studies, and Blackness in Germany. It covers more history than I expected; Florvil imagines a wide readership, as she lays the groundwork in Black German studies for someone writing about the 80s and 90s. It also includes a bit on African Americans in Germany. Recent interest in decolonizing German studies has shown that this is a timely and necessary project.

Mobilizing Black Germany is organized thematically, with overlaps in the time frames of the 80s and 90s. In the introduction, Florvil lays the groundwork for recent Black German history. Chapter 1 discusses the influence of poet and thinker Audre Lorde. It gives an overview of Lorde's life before her time in Berlin. The chapter highlights transnational connections with Black Germans, and especially Black German women. Chapter 2 discusses the magazine AWA-Finnaba, the publication Farbe bekennen, Bundestreffen meetings, and the beginnings of Initiative of Black People in Germany. While Farbe bekennen is well known, the AWA magazine and Bundestreffen meetings are not as well known. Chapter 3 documents the creation of the feminist magazine Afrekete under the guidance of Lorde, the formation of the collective AdeFra (Afrodeutsche Frauen), and the queer feminism and queer kinship via these collectives. Florvil explains, "with the emergence of local chapters, Black German women gained representation, resisted their imposed othering, and combated multiple forms of discrimination in Germany and elsewhere, becoming quotidian intellectuals" (78). Chapter 4 focuses on May Ayim and her activism in the early beginnings of the Black German movement in the 80s and 90s. Chapter 5 is about the various Black History Month celebrations and Black annual meetings, Bundestreffen. Chapter 6 addresses Black internationalism in the 1990s using the example of the Black women's studies institute of 1991. Florvil concludes the book with an epilogue about what the Black Lives Matter movement means in Germany in the 2010s. BLM in Germany means access to spaces, showing structural racism in Germany, making transnational connections—things similar to earlier movements that Florvil listed.

The themes in Mobilizing Black Germany include creating linkages between various Black and marginalized groups in the diaspora, transnationalism, self-definition and articulation, and making space for Blackness. The book's strengths lie in its openness to complexities. For example, Florvil explains that Lorde's positioning in the Black German movement is controversial. For some, Lorde is the founder of Black German consciousness. For others, Lorde acts more as a facilitator or connector to others. Florvil is open about various disagreements within these groups; she does not force cohesion. This is in keeping with broader trends in scholarship that try to complicate narratives of activism and acknowledge that those involved are not perfect, and that the creation and maintenance of the groups is not a smooth process. Likewise, Florvil details Lorde's romantic relations.

With her book, Florvil puts pen to...