“Why are there so many Black people in Paris?” Believe it or not, Kévi Donat gets asked that question a lot. And he usually has a response.

That’s a good thing since he’s the founder of Le Paris Noir, a Paris walking tour company that gives clients an opportunity to see the city of lights from a Black perspective. We first met Kévi in 2017 when we first discussed why he built his Parisian walking tours and his mission to address the gaps in French history.

Paris has always been more complicated than the romance suggests. For over a century it’s functioned as a gathering point for Black people from Martinique, Senegal, Congo, French Guiana, and the United States — a place where someone from Senegal would meet someone from Chicago who would meet someone from French Guiana. That history is real, and largely invisible in mainstream French culture.

Now in 2020, Kévi is back to share what’s changed and what hasn’t. We go deep on cultural identity, the immigrant landscape, why the word multiculturalism can feel like a threat in France, and the increasing visibility of Black French stories.