Across the Atlantic: A Journey Through Europe’s Black History

Madrid sets the foundation for the journey, offering an entry point into Spain’s imperial past and the Black presence often left out of traditional narratives. Two walking tours will allow you to explore the city from different perspectives: Old Madrid, where early power, enslavement, and resistance shaped the historic core, and Modern Madrid, where colonial wealth and expansion are reflected in 18th-century architecture and urban planning. Seen together, these perspectives reveal how power, wealth, and resistance are embedded in Madrid’s streets and landmarks.

Lisbon anchors the journey in the history of Europe’s maritime expansion and the transatlantic slave trade. A slave trade–focused walking tour examines how Portugal’s Age of Discovery shaped the city’s streets, monuments, and riverfront, connecting familiar landmarks to systems of forced migration and global exchange. That historical perspective is deepened with a visit to the National Museum of Ethnology, where collections from Africa, Asia, and the Americas place Lisbon’s role in a broader global context. This lens is complemented by the Afro Flavors Food Tour, which highlights Lisbon’s African diaspora today through food, community, and everyday culture.

London is central to understanding how empire, trade, and migration shaped modern Europe. The Black London Uncovered private taxi tour provides a citywide framework, connecting major landmarks to Britain’s role in enslavement, resistance, and Black British history. That context is sharpened at the Museum of London Docklands and the National Maritime Museum, where maritime power, commerce, and the transatlantic slave trade are examined through place and archive.

For a view into modern Black culture, time in Brixton highlights how postwar migration shaped one of the city’s most influential communities. An African and Caribbean food tour and a visit to the Black Cultural Archives ground London’s global history in lived culture, creativity, and everyday life.

Just across the English Channel, Paris continues the journey with a focus on Black intellectual life, art, and global influence. Ricki Stevenson’s Black Paris Tour traces African, Caribbean, and African American presence across well-known neighborhoods, highlighting how writers, artists, and activists shaped the city’s cultural identity. This perspective is expanded at the Musée du quai Branly, where collections from Africa and the African diaspora situate Paris within a broader story of empire, exchange, and representation.

Paris also serves as a natural base for a day trip to Nantes, where the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade is addressed directly through place and memory. Visits to the Musée d’Histoire de Nantes, housed within the Château des Ducs de Bretagne, and the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery along the Loire River provide historical grounding that complements the cultural and intellectual focus of Paris.

An easy train ride north brings the journey to Amsterdam, where wealth, trade, and empire shaped both the city’s beauty and its contradictions. The story is centered at the Rijksmuseum, where the Slavery exhibition examines the Netherlands’ role in enslavement across the Caribbean, South America, Africa, and Asia, directly challenging the narratives often associated with the Dutch Golden Age. Seen through this lens, Amsterdam’s iconic canals and grand façades reflect not only artistic achievement, but the global systems that helped build them.

Copenhagen offers a quieter but revealing lens on Northern Europe’s role in empire and the transatlantic slave trade. The story is centered at the National Museum of Denmark, where Denmark’s colonial history and its ties to the Danish West Indies are presented with clarity and context. Beyond the museum, the Traces of the Slave Trade uncovers how this history remains embedded in the city’s streets, buildings, and public spaces. In a city known for design and livability, these experiences quietly reveal what helped shape the world Copenhagen occupies today.