From Josephine Baker and James Baldwin to André Leon Talley and today’s artists, Paris has long drawn queer African Americans seeking freedom, visibility, and creative possibility. In this interactive lecture, novelist and current American Library Visiting Fellow Rasheed Newson examines how queer Black Americans have been perceived and received in France, and why so many have chosen expatriate life in the City of Lights. Blending history, visual media, and cultural analysis, Newson interrogates Paris as a refuge—and the limits of that promise.