They Won’t Budge: Africans in Europe

By Tanya Watts

“They Won’t Budge: Africans in Europe,” 
Courtesy of the Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, New York University

They Won’t Budge: Africans in Europe, currently on view at the Harlem-based Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, is a welcomed wake up call to the myopia of a very American view of the black experience.

Dissonant and peaceful, vivacious and lifeless, spiritual and whimsical, the portraits on display both speak across cultures and pinpoint a specificity of migratory moments. Traipsing through local migrant neighborhoods that are affected by global policies; tracing migratory patterns with imperial and colonial undertones; and translating stories of hope for a better life despite harsh current realities are the huge undertakings of They Won’t Budge.

The protest captured here shows an unarmored African migrant unprepared for battle against an Italian legion. The confrontation is symbolic of the meniscus that results between two cultures abruptly placed in close physical proximity. In this case, the African migratory experience is buttressed against a stalwart European ethos that still values colonial ideologies. However, as the Schomburg exhibition displays, these African migrants are equipped with something other than an armor fashioned with material strength; instead it is the armor of hope, resilience, and perseverance that equips them to survive.

Curated by New York University’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, They Won’t Budge is a vivid and moving photographic journey of the African Diasporic community in Europe and a compelling presentation of their unique struggles.