Black and abroad: African-American expats ponder the future amid volatile politics back home and in Europe

As the United States sits on the precipice of yet another election that could ‘determine the fate of democracy’ (cue dramatic music), many Black Americans, myself included, have started to veer away from the question of, “Who are we voting for?’ and toward, “Where are we moving?”

In the years following the heavily documented rise in police brutality, killings, and assaults against Black people, coupled with the polarizing political environment, more and more Black Americans have grown tired of the status quo and are considering options elsewhere as we await the outcome of the upcoming election and what it could mean for our future in the States.

But this isn’t a new story. For decades, Black people have sought an escape from ever-present racism, discrimination, and oppression in the United States. Notable figures throughout history – artists, musicians, and free thinkers like James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, and W.E.B DuBois all pursued a life abroad at some point.

For many, the choice to leave or stay likely comes down to economics – will they be able to find work and provide for themselves and their families if they uproot for an entirely different country? It also comes down to a willingness to take a leap of faith.

There’s no way of knowing exactly how many Black Americans are taking the leap to a different country because the U.S. Department of State does “not maintain comprehensive lists of U.S. citizens residing overseas,” according to a State Department representative. But we know a Blaxit (Black + exit) is happening by the sheer number of podcasts, websites, and social media groups that have cropped up over the last several years dedicated to the movement, helping soon-to-be expats find resources, and establishing communities for those who have already taken the leap. Since I started looking into my own Blaxit last year, my timelines have been full of articles on the subject, ads on how to become an expat, and courses on planning for your move.

Although, we’re considering several locations, I spent the greater part of the summer in Germany as an Arthur F. Burns fellow, through the International Center for Journalists. I came with the purpose of finding Black Americans who chose Berlin as their new home away from home and used it as a testing ground for seeking out community in a foreign land.

While I understand it may not be topping many Blaxit destination lists, given its unshakeable identification with Nazism and the Holocaust, the Germany of today has many perks for any American concerned about the high cost of living, the divisive political climate, and ceaseless gun violence.

For one, Germany boasts the largest economy in the European Union and the third largest economy in the world after the U.S. and China, which means there are jobs, or at least the potential to create your own. In fact, Germany needs skilled workers in many fields. The social services alone (“Hello, guaranteed healthcare! Hello, 12 weeks of paid parental leave!”) mean you could still live comfortably even if your income falls short compared to an American standard. With college nearing the price of what you might pay for textbooks, as one person I spoke with put it, student loans would become a thing of the past. And in terms of gun violence, occurrences are drastically lower than in the US. While it’s impossible to know the population of Black people, much less African-Americans, an estimated 1.27 million people with an “African migration background” reside in the country.

Germany, however, hasn’t kept reliable statistical records on race and ethnicity “since the end of the Second World War,” according to Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. Over the last two months, I sampled life in Berlin and talked with Black Americans about their experience living abroad, what it’s like to make a living, and if the trade-offs are indeed worth it.

“I think it’s a wonderful opportunity for people to be able to come out and really find themselves, independent of what they’re supposed to be because they’re American or Canadian,” said Vicky Germain, who made the move to Berlin twice – once in 2004 and again in 2013.

Germain was one of the first connections I made after being in Berlin for a couple of weeks. She is a slender woman with a copper-tone complexion with jaw-length twists and striking features whose love for her people and taking ownership of your destiny are evident the moment she starts talking. We were first introduced through an organization called Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (ISD) or Initiative for Black People in Germany – think the German version of the NAACP.

During an hours-long conversation over pizza and limoncello spritzes, Germain shared that her motivation for coming to Germany was the memory of her father’s love for the country after being stationed there during his time in the military. When she arrived, she was pursuing a career in film, but has since had many roles. Currently, Germain is helping to resettle Black and other refugees of color displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war. She says it’s her personal mission to get more Black Americans to Berlin.

“I just try to convince people (that) you don’t have to struggle. […] If you’re struggling, look abroad, look out for different opportunities because there are still those opportunities that our parents used to talk about, our grandparents used to talk about, like – those are still available,” said Germain.

Those opportunities include buying land– opening the door to generational wealth, which has escaped many Black American families. “Purchase property – what you couldn’t do in the States. Purchase property. Establish yourself. Use this as your point of departure,” says Germain.

The struggle is exactly what filmmaker Jon Carlos Evans escaped when he came to Berlin in 2012 “completely by accident,” after paying over a thousand dollars in rent to share an apartment with multiple roommates in New York’s Meatpacking District.

“[A]s I was traveling back and forth, I realized I enjoyed it more here. I felt more at home. I can get more done. I wasn’t constantly just, like, stressed and like scrambling,” said Evans, a towering brown skinned man with shoulder length locks, a chinstrap beard, and glasses who’s originally from St. Louis. “I found an apartment– a really nice flat, where I had two roommates, and it was like, 300 a month. And I was like, All right, ticket, plus this, I’m out.”

Evans says immigrating to Germany gave him a new respect for migrants coming to the US and the hoops they have to jump through. He says the visa process is pretty straightforward.

“Here, it’s kind of like applying for college again,” said Evans. “Here’s my degrees. This is what I do. You can look me up. Here’s my bank account. Here’s this, this, this, this. Here’s a letter of invitation for some work. And that’s it. It’s basically done.’’

Having an invitation to work from a German entity is probably the easiest way to obtain a visa, but it’s not the only way. There are many options available for students, vocational training, IT professionals that don’t necessarily require a degree, and others that are skilled in a particular field. There’s even a freelance visa that will allow you to stay in-country for a limited amount of time while you look for work. Perhaps the golden ticket is getting an EU Blue Card, because if you decide that you don’t want to stay in Germany, the Blue Card will allow you to work elsewhere in the European Union.

Berlin has always held a reputation as being a haven for artists and creatives. And from what I gather, those with an entrepreneurial spirit or their own business may thrive in Germany. Ebonie Ealey designs luxury headpieces. She’s also a mom, a military spouse, and for transparency’s sake, my best friend. She’s tall and slim, donning a crown of shoulder length sister locs often adorned with colorful feathers strewn throughout.

Her unshakeable confidence and infectious positivity paired with an undeniable New York accent makes her presence both bold and disarming. Ealey also lived in Spain, but feels her brand, Ebaneza, wouldn’t have achieved the same success if she had launched it there.

”I would have to say, coming here to Germany, that it really took off” Took my brand off in a way that I didn’t imagine,” says Ealey. “I was blessed enough and favored enough to be in a place where I was able to really shine.”

Ealey has lived in Germany near Ramstein Air Force Base since 2022 but is making plans for her family to stay in Europe after her husband retires in two years. “Overall, for me, it’s a better lifestyle. It’s more affordable,” says Ealey. “It’s amazing. My kids get exposure. I don’t got to worry about gun violence.”

That’s not to say that violence doesn’t exist, but insofar as gun crime is concerned, it’s not nearly as much of an issue as it is in the States. It’s one of the main selling points for everyone I spoke with for this piece, especially those with children.

Nicholas “Eiliyas” Kelly moved to Berlin in 2011 to raise his half-German son and likely would’ve moved to Berlin beforehand to advance his career as an artist. He hosts a podcast called Mixtape Menage where he gets to know artists, creators, and cultural facilitators through their music collection.

Eiliyas, as he prefers to be called, is tall and brown skinned. Sporting glasses, a small Afro and sparse beard, he looks every bit of the artist he is. He shared with me that his son is just getting to the age where he’s becoming more independent and venturing out on his own. “I don’t worry in the same way that I know I would in the US. I think this is one of the main things that really is a factor,” says Eiliyas.

Eiliyas, who is from Georgia, made the statement after describing a time when he and his son had just missed a shooting incident that happened on the MARTA train in Atlanta after leaving a friend’s house.”

I kind of had calculated that if I would have left at the time that I initially planned on it, then I might have actually had my son in that scenario. And that scared me — like that just scared the shit out of [me],” he said.Statistics bolster Eiliyas’ point about the difference in violence between the two countries.To put it in perspective, the reported number of murders in Germany for 2023 is 214 compared to 2,115 homicides in the United States, according to FBI data.

But with all of its upsides, living in Germany while Black is certainly not without its flaws. Despite there being a long documented history of Black people in Germany long before World War II, communities of Afro Germans and other Black immigrants continue to be othered by German society, enduring remarks about their command of the language or questions like, ‘But where are you really from?“”

If you mess up a ‘der, die, das’ — the grammar in German, you fuck that up, that means you’re an outlier, forever,” said military-man-turned broadcast journalist, Kres Harrington, referring to the masculine, feminine, and neutral forms of “the.”

Harrington is light-skinned with a stocky build, a mustache and beard, and an endearing smile whose California roots come to the forefront through his style and speech. A clear fan of bowties, he commands a confident and authoritative on-air presence, and doesn’t hold back when it comes to incidents of racial discrimination, especially in the European sports world.

He was stationed in Frankfurt while serving in the U.S. Army and worked as a broadcaster for the American Forces Network. He left for the States to further pursue his broadcast career but returned to Germany during the 2008 recession when many jobs dried up. He explained that he learned a lot about the perception of race while working as an English teacher, following a run-in with the “secret” police where he was racially targeted. Harrington said that while waiting on the train to get to his class, “[O]ut of nowhere, I had a badge in my face, and I knew who it was, just from my military days. Harrington goes on to describe an altercation he had with plain-clothed police officers who demanded to see his passport. He believes he was stopped because he’s a Black man.

It’s a situation that, unfortunately, is all too familiar for many Black Americans – being racially profiled. Harrington said when he was approached, he was dressed in a suit to teach a class full of bankers. As soon as the detective saw his American passport, Harrington says the detective balked and eventually let him go. But what if he didn’t have any documentation on him at the time? But perhaps even more troubling than the stop itself, Harrington says he was further shocked when he thought his students would echo his outrage. Instead, they sympathized with the police. After describing the situation, Harrington says his students, “looked at me and said, ‘No, no, [it] wouldn’t have shocked us. Black people commit more crimes.’ Just like that, in a callous kind of way. I’ve carried that with me.

”Among the people I spoke with there was a range of experiences from overt discrimination to microaggressions similar to what could be expected in the States.

“It’s like racism orange, and you’re used to racism grape, you know? It’s still gonna be just as bad for you, it just tastes a little bit different.

But by and large, the prospect of racism was not a deterrent for making the move to Germany or choosing to stay. And, as Germain implores, the existence of racism is not an excuse for Black Americans not to take action if they really want to change their surroundings.

”Yes, there’s racism, but you’ve survived racism, and you know how to deal with it. You know how to end it. You know, how to, like, not be involved in that nonsense. You know, sometimes I feel like, especially now with the global move to the right, the world needs our expertise,” says Germain.

There are still obstacles faced by Black Germans, Black expats, and other foreigners.

According to the 2021 Afrozensus, the first Afro-German census conducted in the country’s history, Afro-Germans reported housing discrimination as the most prevalent issue they face, followed by discrimination by police and security personnel. Harrington says when he was looking for an apartment in Frankfurt, one person suggested moving to an area with more foreigners because existing tenants have veto and endorsement power over accepting new residents.

“You don’t have a fair shot at an apartment just because you qualify financially, and you have no messed up credit […] but you have to be recommended by the person currently living there to the owner of the apartment or building,” said Harrington.

Among the people I interviewed for this story, their experiences with racism differ, from subtle occurrences to the more overt, however, they all worry about the creep of right-wing populism across the EU. Far-right populist movements have been growing across the globe, including in the U.S., Brazil, and Portugal.

Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has gained traction in the past 11 years, with a party platform that has gained a reputation for being xenophobic and holding anti-immigrant (i.e. Islamaphobic) views that blame so-called outsiders for Germany’s societal and economic woes, and rhetoric reminiscent of the Third Reich. One of the party’s leaders, Björn Höcke, has already been fined twice for using Nazi slogans while gaining momentum in the East German states of Thuringia, Saxony, and Brandenburg, which surrounds the capital city.

For Nicole, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym to protect her family’s privacy, a growing rise in the AfD’s popularity could threaten the life that she’s built for her and her son. ‘’I am a little bit [concerned]. I’m sad about it because it would just rip up our life, and we would have to leave,” says Nicole.

In her late 40s, Nicole decided to take her child and leave everything in New York behind, even her husband, for a safer, quieter, and much less expensive life in Berlin.

”This is one of the best decisions I ever made, to come here,” said Nicole. “I have everything. I have a great gym. It’s somewhat affordable. Where else are you going to get a city that has all of that, plus all the culture […]and you’re centrally located in Europe.’’

Nicole, who identifies as mixed race, is a tall, fit, free-spirited woman who has relied on her faith to carry her and her son through their expat journey. As we talked over cappuccinos at her favorite neighborhood watering hole, she told me that she left New York in 2018 during the Trump administration. “[T]oo many sirens– just a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety about living there. No control over our lives. A lot of police action. And also, it was just so much more peaceful here,” explained Nicole.

She says if things begin to turn volatile with the Afd, “then I would have to see where the best place is for us. I’m afraid to go back to the United States, to be honest, especially for [the] next year, next two years.” Efforts are now underway by some German parliamentarians to ban the AfD altogether.

Several people I spoke with are still keenly engaged in US politics. They’re concerned about the country they left behind where their loved ones are still carrying out daily life, and the future of the nation they may one day return to. The others expressed a range of attitudes, from ambivalence to dejection.

Further, most have no intention of returning to the US, at least permanently, even if Germany isn’t their forever home. The key takeaways for anyone thinking about a Blaxit to Germany is to first consider the trade-offs. Life is generally cheaper, with housing estimated to be 58 percent less in than the US and childcare costing less than half of what it would in the States. People generally report feeling much safer, higher education is nearly free, and the food is generally healthier, with less additives than in the States. Restaurant menus even have a key listing additives and allergens.

However, the drawbacks of such a move include the obvious– navigating the language barrier and having the maturity to recognize and deal with stark cultural differences, the distance away from friends and family, and on a more practical note (for me at least), where can I go to get my ethnic hair done without causing damage.

The one thing that everyone has in common that I spoke to, is they all eventually found community– their people. That, above all else, seems to be the one common thread that is making life enjoyable, or at least livable.

As for my own plans? I’ll continue to press forward and add Germany to the list of possibilities.

This story was published in collaboration with Black With No Chaser News. Candice Cole is a broadcast journalist, native Washingtonian, and future ex-pat. She’s a curious Aquarius, passionate about exploring new places and telling stories about the human experience. This report was made possible with support from International Center for Journalists Arthur F. Burns Fellowship.