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Andscape at the Olympics is an ongoing series exploring the Black athletes and culture around the 2024 Paris Games.

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PARIS – Welcome to Andscape at the Olympics, a video series in which Andscape columnist William C. Rhoden, senior NBA writer Marc J. Spears and Andscape/ESPN commentator Ari Chambers discuss the key topics about Black athletes and culture at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

In Episode 3, Rhoden and Spears take the conversation to a park to discuss Simone Biles’ triumph with the U.S. women’s gymnastics team winning the gold medal and the U.S. men’s gymnastics team winning the bronze medal (0:50), whether the USA Basketball teams will be threatened (2:40), what events they’re interested in and have seen in their spare time (10:42) and which sports that aren’t in the Olympics should be added to the Games (14:30).

–Episode 2: Andscape at the Olympics: Talking US women’s sports from Simone Biles to Sha’Carri Richardson
–Episode 1: Andscape at the Olympics: Talking USA Basketball, opening ceremony

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Andscape at the Olympics is an ongoing series exploring the Black athletes and culture around the 2024 Paris Games.

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PARIS — It’s only fitting that the great gymnast Simone Biles would make a powerful Olympic comeback in Paris. This is the city where African American artists have found favor since the beginning of the 20th century, a city where Black American women have become stars.

Paris is where the great entertainer Josephine Baker became a legend and where Althea Gibson won the French Championships, now the French Open, becoming the first African American to win a Grand Slam tennis event. The 27-year-old Biles has used the Paris Games to cement her claim as the greatest gymnast of all time.

Three years after withdrawing from the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games in 2021 and beginning a long overdue conversation about mental health, Biles returned to Olympic competition with tornadic force. On Sunday, she finished first in the all-around in team qualifying despite competing with an injured left calf.

On Tuesday, Biles led a powerhouse U.S. team to its third gold medal in four Olympics. On Thursday, Biles will go for the all-important all-around gold medal and over the weekend she can win multiple medals on individual apparatus.

Biles and Team USA have called the Paris Olympics a redemption tour. Team USA won the silver medal in 2021 at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games, but that was considered a failure. On July 27, 2021, Biles stunned the gymnastics world when she withdrew from the women’s gymnastics team competition finals. A day later, Biles withdrew from the individual all-around competition. Team USA was a heavy favorite in Tokyo and failed to win gold largely because Biles withdrew from the final because of a mental block called the twisties that did not allow her to perform.

That silver medal in Tokyo ended the United States’ consecutive team winning streak at two and Biles would miss 732 days away from the sport.

Far be it from me to quibble with Biles about redemption, but that seems to have put additional pressure on Biles and the team to win gold when all she did in 2021 was chose to take care of herself.

Biles is too great to chase redemption.

The 2024 Olympics are less about redemption than validating what we all know: Biles is the greatest gymnast of all time. She has five gymnastic skills named after her and is the most decorated gymnast of hers or any other generation. Biles won her fifth Olympic gold medal Tuesday. She is a six-time world all-around champion and has more World Championship medals (30) and World Championship gold medals (23) than any other gymnast in history.

When asked about the medal count, Biles said she’s not counting.

“Honestly I would have had to Google that,” she said Tuesday when asked about her medals. “I don’t keep count. I don’t keep stats. I just go out here and do what I’m supposed to and I’m doing what I love and enjoying it, so that’s really all that matters to me.”

Perhaps it’s because Biles realizes that she is also the culmination of so many decades of hopes and dreams crushed and deferred simply because the sport was not willing to accept diversity and inclusion.

Last week, I looked at the Wendy Hilliard Gymnastics Foundation website, which compiled a section dedicated to the shoulders on which Biles has stood. In 1979, Hilliard became the first Black athlete to represent the U.S. internationally in rhythmic gymnastics. Her site is dedicated to detailing the history of African Americans in gymnastics.

I looked at the timeline and listened to familiar stories of isolation and frustration. Like swimming, gymnastics for aspiring African American athletes has been a lonely space.

• In 1972, Alexandra Nicholson became the first Black woman to win an individual medal at the World Championships. She won gold on the trampoline.
• In 1980, Luci Collins became the first Black woman to be named to the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team. Her dream died when the United States boycotted the Moscow Games.
• In 1983, Dianne Durham became the first Black female U.S. all-around champion and the first to win an individual national event title. She just missed making the U.S. Olympic team.
• In 1991, Betty Okino became the first Black gymnast to win the American Cup and in 1992, Dominique Dawes became the first Black female gymnast to win an individual Olympic medal and the first to make multiple U.S. Olympic teams.
• In 2012, Gabby Douglas became the first Black gymnast to win an Olympic all-around gymnastics title. She was also the first American to win all-around and team golds at the same Games.

Biles made her first Olympic team in 2016 and has never looked back.

But Biles has become a pioneer in her own right. She continues to compete and excel, well beyond the age when most gymnasts have left the sport. Biles is the oldest American woman to win an Olympic gold in gymnastics in 60 years. Perhaps she is showing future generations of gymnasts that their careers can have a longer runway.

And like Baker, Biles is a force of nature. The comparisons between Baker and Biles are intriguing but not always precise. Baker became a star when she came to Paris while Biles was already a star when she arrived. On the other hand, both women were impetuous and successful at an early age. Baker was 19 years old when she arrived in Paris in 1925 and became a hit virtually from her first bold performance. Biles was 19 years old when she won her first Olympic gold medal and became a dominant, revolutionary force.

And just as Baker did more than sing during her life in Paris, Biles did more than flip. During World War II, Baker was a member of the French Resistance and a rights activist. Biles brought international attention to mental health when she made the bold move to withdraw from Olympic competition in 2021. Since then, Biles has helped change the way athletes approach training with an emphasis on self-care.

Just as significantly, Biles has created a community of elite Black women in her Houston gym. In her documentary, Simone Biles Rising, what comes across is a part of Biles many may not know — a side that is committed to nurturing and supporting fellow gymnasts, not as a superstar but as a friend and as a sister.

In the interview room after Tuesday’s match, Biles talked about how the powers that be in gymnastics once wanted to put young gymnasts in a box that took the joy out of the sport. She has used the last three years to put the joy back in the sport. There’s a lightness now that was missing for a number of years. There is a work/life balance between competing hard and self-care.

“We can show off our personalities, really have fun,’’ she said, “but then also know that once we get on the floor we’re going to put in work and we’re going to show the results and we don’t have to be put in the box anymore.”

In 2021, Baker became the first Black woman to enter France’s Panthéon mausoleum of outstanding historical figures. Biles already has a foot in the pantheon of legendary athletes.

She still has more work to do this week. She’s not finished just yet. But just as Baker’s legacy went beyond the stage, Biles’ legacy goes beyond a medal count. Her stature has grown, and she has found her voice, she has found her power.

Josephine Baker would be proud.

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Andscape at the Olympics is an ongoing series exploring the Black athletes and culture around the 2024 Paris Games.

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PARIS — These Olympics can be defined as the Games of women’s empowerment, in particular Black women power. There is the historic dominance of the USA women’s basketball team, the seismic impact of gymnast Simone Biles and the quest of sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson to win the gold medal she felt was denied in 2020.

Then there is Ashleigh Johnson, a two-time Olympic champion regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers in women’s water polo — she made 80 saves at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games in 2021, more than any other goalkeeper in the women’s and men’s tournaments. Johnson is a mainstay on a dominant U.S. Olympic women’s water polo team going for its fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal.

Johnson helped lead Team USA to gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games in 2021. On Saturday, her team opened its title defense with a dominant 15-6 victory over Greece. Johnson recorded 10 saves through three-plus quarters. On Monday, Team USA lost to Spain 13-11 in group play.

Johnson, who played water polo for four years at Princeton, made her first Olympic team when she was 21. Now at 29, Johnson has become a sage, a keeper of the flame, and has cautioned this Olympic team that it has to write its own story.

“The legacy of this team is very strong — the U.S. women’s water polo team has won three consecutive golds, and this is an opportunity to get a fourth one,” she said. “But this specific team, this group of women, has not accomplished anything yet. We have not won a gold medal, we have not been to an Olympic Games. This is our first opportunity to prove ourselves. We’re making our own way and writing our own stories.”

That defines Johnson’s journey from taking local swimming lessons, leading her Miami high school to three consecutive Florida state championships, playing intercollegiate water polo at an Ivy League school and becoming a dominant force in a sport devoid of a Black presence.

In 2016, Johnson became the first African American woman to make a U.S. Olympic women’s water polo team. For all of the talk about progress and a misplaced backlash against diversity, Johnson is a testament to the efficacy of diversity and the power of inclusion.

Just ask the opposition. Johnson played four years at Princeton and became the all-time career saves leader. Johnson’s journey was an arduous and lonely learning experience, one that gave her new insights into what other pioneers had to endure to break through previously segregated disciplines.

The greatest challenge was internal, testing her belief in herself. The first was her choice of a college.

“I played the sport through high school and making the decision to go to college for water polo wasn’t easy,” she said. “I chose Princeton, which was a very atypical path for a water polo player, but I was going to play water polo there, which I did for the four years.’’

After her sophomore year, Johnson made the difficult decision to leave college and train to make the U.S. Olympic women’s water polo team. “That decision was difficult because I never saw anybody who looked like me on that team. I never imagined myself doing that. I always wanted that balance between my life and sports, and it felt like making the decision to move to California from New Jersey was a huge decision to leave that balance and let go of that balance in my life.”

She had to overcome self-doubt, but finally tapped into the positive energy of family and friends who encouraged her to make the leap. “I was like, ‘OK, here are all of these people who believe in me, who believe that I can do this. Let me take a chance and believe that I can do this, believe in myself, and just go for it.’ So, I did. I worked hard for two years and ended up making my first Olympic team.”

In many ways, Johnson’s journey defines the journey of every athlete who made an Olympic team in any sport. She was stretched and pushed in ways she could never have imagined. Even the isolation of being a pioneer became strengthening.

“We trained twice a day, we lifted four times a week. It was a lot more than I’d ever done,” Johnson said. “I’m glad that I took the risk, but it was strange.”

As an East Coast transplant on the West Coast, Johnson was a fish out of water. “Water polo is based on the West Coast, so coming from the East Coast and translating what I knew about water polo, how I played to the national team, was a very hard transition. And then being the only one who looked like me, I was like, ‘OK how do I fit in when no one looks like me, no one has my background and then what do I want to take from them? What do I want to give? How open, how vulnerable am I going to be with this team?’ ”

And what would happen if she did all this, made the sacrifices, opened up and still didn’t get the result she wanted?

Johnson discovered that letting go of fear was liberating.

“That was a hard journey,” she said. “But I ended up making the team and also letting go of the fear of not making it, which is hard when you have such a big goal.

“That’s something that a lot of people don’t realize about the Olympic journey. It’s like the tighter you hold onto the fear of not achieving it, the harder it hurts when you don’t get there and the less you actually experience the journey along the way, which is actually the best thing that you get out of it.”

Three Olympics later, Johnson has become a leader and rock on Team USA. Her mission now, besides helping her team win a fourth consecutive gold medal, is opening up the pathway and bringing more young women who look like her into the sport.

She was heartened in July when the 65-year-old rapper Flavor Flav signed a five-year sponsorship deal to support men’s and women’s water polo national teams.

“I’ve met a lot of young Black girls in my sport. A lot of them connect with me by reaching out on Instagram through USA Water Polo,” Johnson said. “Just sharing stories and encouraging and being a fan of the people who are coming up in our sport, being the voice that’s guiding them telling them that they’re on the right path, they’re doing the right thing, there’s space for you here.

“I think that telling the new story is something that I try to do, saying that we belong here that we excel here and then mentorship. That’s big for me.”

When she was 21 and on the lonely path of the pioneer, Johnson fought hard to find joy in her journey. Today, she said, her joy is abundant.

“I think that finding joy in what you’re doing is all about asking yourself why you are doing this,” she said. “I play because it brings me joy even in a low moment. Like, jumping in the pool is one of the hardest things I do all day, but I reflect on the fact that, as my job I get to play a game with my friends and it’s the same game that I’ve been playing since I was young. The game hasn’t changed, I’ve just gotten better at it, so I play a game that I’m really good at with my friends every day.”

There is also a greater joy at this Olympics than there was at the Tokyo Games when the world was in the throes of a pandemic.

Johnson said there is a lightness and atmosphere of joy that was missing in 2021.

“One of the biggest differences between the Tokyo Olympics and this Olympics are the fact that we are past the pandemic, and that affected a lot of athletes,” she said. “A lot of people were grieving losses, a lot of people were figuring out how to come back from financial losses, social losses and being so distant.

“We didn’t have any interaction with other athletes [in Tokyo]. The Olympic spirit was there, but it was dulled. So, coming into this Olympics, that Olympic spirit has been revived. As much as I’m excited to play, people are excited to go and be a part of the Olympic spirit. There’s been an infusion of energy for all of us.”

Winning a fourth gold medal will bring joy, but so will seeing her sport become more diversified, so will being at peace with whatever results her team achieves.

Joy has become multifaceted.

“The pandemic gave us the proper perspective,” Johnson said. “ ‘OK, I play water polo and I’m an athlete, but what else am I?’ — understanding that you are more than an athlete, you are more than whatever you do for your work. I need to go on a walk every day or I like to cook, I like to read. Getting in touch with those things that bring you joy.’’

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Andscape at the Olympics is an ongoing series exploring the Black athletes and culture around the 2024 Paris Games.

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PARIS – Welcome to Andscape at the Olympics, a video series in which Andscape columnist William C. Rhoden, senior NBA writer Marc J. Spears and Andscape/ESPN commentator Ari Chambers discuss the key topics about Black athletes and culture at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

In Episode 2, the crew gathers at Le Gramont to give their take on the opening ceremony (0:45), the vibe surrounding women’s sports at the Games from gymnast Simone Biles making even more history to rapper Flavor Flav supporting women’s water polo (9:08) and the racial tone of France toward Black people (11:57). Then they turn their attention to the state of the 5×5 USA women’s basketball team (15:20), the Caitlin Clark and Team USA (16:20), 3×3 basketball (18:25), Black men in gymnastics (20:10), and the outlook for USA men’s and women’s basketball (21:25). Finally, they conclude by discussing what Chambers is looking forward to in women’s track and field, including sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson (24:59) and more.

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Black Americans in France is an ongoing series highlighting African Americans living abroad during the 2024 Paris Games.

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PARIS — Leroy Chalk was born in Big Sandy, Texas, and moved to France in 1977.

Unlike many Black expatriates, Chalk did not set his eyes on Paris at an early age and did not leave the United States because he was fed up with racism. His dream was to play basketball, and he would go wherever the game took him: from Big Sandy to Lincoln, Nebraska, to Boston to Belgium and finally Paris.

What began as a basketball journey became an adventure that landed him in the City of Light.

“I’ve always been adventurous,” he told me recently. “I was back there in the country. I never liked that country life. Now I could really enjoy it, but when I was a kid coming up, I didn’t want to be in the country. I wanted to go to New York. I always wanted to be in a city environment-type thing. Not in the country.”

Chalk’s ticket out of Big Sandy became basketball.

Chalk originally signed a letter of intent to attend East Texas State. He was resigned to staying local. “Everybody could have come to see me play, though that wasn’t big-time ball,” Chalk said.

After an outstanding senior year in high school, he caught the attention of a number of larger schools, including the University of Nebraska. The Cornhuskers came calling to Big Sandy and convinced Chalk to visit Lincoln.

Chalk’s world was about to widen.

“I had just turned 18, I hadn’t ever been nowhere,” he said.

As one of five children — and the only boy — the idea of going to Nebraska was daunting.

“Me and my mother were very, very tight. You know what I mean? Me and her took care of the girls,” Chalk said. “For me to leave at 18, that was hard to do, that was a hard decision to make. When I made it, I said, ‘I got to make it, I can’t go up there and fail and make my mama ’shamed.’ I had to make it for my mom’s sake.”

Chalk did indeed do well at Nebraska, well enough to be drafted by the Boston Celtics and come within an injury of making the team. He was chosen in the 13th round of the 1971 NBA draft.

Clarence Glover was a first-round pick that year but Chalk was having a great camp … at Glover’s expense. “I was eating him up, I was hungry,” he said. “Anything coming off the board I’m going for it. I’m young and crazy.”

Unfortunately, Chalk injured his knee and was released. 

“Red Auerbach took me to the airport in his car,” Chalk recalled. “He had a white Cadillac. I’ll never forget that day. He said, ‘Chalk I want you to come back next year, you got a lot of potential.’ ”

​Being cut by Boston was the first major setback of Chalk’s career and it stung. “I cried,” he said. “That hurt, man that hurt. I’d been thinking about that for so long and then to get hurt and everything like that, that was so disappointing.”

Chalk’s agent told him that the Celtics wanted to bring him back but that he should go play in Europe to get healthy. “I was supposed to go for two years and go back. But I got hurt,” Chalk said. “That’s why I had to stay over here. I couldn’t go back to the NBA hurt. I went to Europe to get healthy. Instead, I got hurt worse.”

His first stop was Belgium. Despite the injury, Chalk played well enough to be regarded as an upper-echelon player with all of the attendant perks. He saw the advantages of being a Black American star playing abroad.

“When I got started over here, I was like the star of the team, and that makes a difference,” he said. “When you’re a star, I don’t care what color you are, you get priority treatment.”

There were clubs in Belgium that would not admit certain Black people. “I could go up in there, they’d say, ‘Oh, that’s Leroy, come on in, man,’ ” he said.

“I had a Moroccan guy with me, they told me, ‘You’re good, but no North Africans in here.’ ”

His friend eventually was allowed entry because of Chalk.

“Even though you don’t realize it at the time, it makes a big difference when you’re welcomed and accepted wide open in a place just because who you are, what you’ve done,” Chalk said. “Personally, I was really well treated.”

Chalk played for four years in Belgium. He began playing in France in 1977, playing a year in Châlons-en-Champagne, then a year in Dijon.

When Chalk arrived in France, he didn’t think he’d stay for five decades. He played until the mid-1990s, and in the interim he and his Guadeloupean partner had a daughter. Chalk earned his degree from the National Institute of Sport, Expertise, and Performance. He began teaching and coaching at the Marymount International School in Paris as an after-school sports coach.

“By me having my degree, a French degree, I got into the school system right away,” he said.

​Chalk was settling into life as a Black American in Paris, though he didn’t necessarily connect with the Black community.

“Everything in Paris is so mixed up, it ain’t really no area you can go and say you’re going to the Black part of town or the white part,” Chalk said.

His daughter, who was born in 1987, reflects a different kind of racial sensibility than Chalk’s which was formed by a segregated upbringing in Big Sandy.

“She was raised here in France, so she doesn’t have the same attitude as Black people like me,” he said. “Her attitude is that she doesn’t care who’s in her group: Chinese, Black, white. It doesn’t really matter to her.

“We’re raised up with that Black-White thing, but my daughter being raised up over here, she doesn’t care. Her attitude is totally different than mine.”

Chalk is a different kind of Black American expat. He did not target France, he landed here because of basketball. At age 75, he has enjoyed a good life in Paris. He is a French resident but an American citizen. “I have all the rights as a French person here, but not voting rights,” he said.

During the course of interviewing a handful of African Americans living in Paris, I asked them all the same questions. 

• Could they see themselves moving back to the United States?
• Do they feel freer in France than in the United States?
• Do they miss the States?
• Do they feel French?

“Man, I really would like to go back, this coming fall as a matter of fact,” Chalk said. “But permanently? I don’t see it. I’d have to hit the lotto. I’d have to have some backup because for me just to go back with my wages, I couldn’t make it.”

Freer?: “I do,” he said. “I don’t feel discrimination like there is in the States. It exists, of course. But I don’t feel the discrimination like it is in the States.”

Do you miss the United States? “Not really. I go back and enjoy myself but I’ve been over here so long, so not really,” he said.

​Finally, do you feel French?

​“I’ve been up here 53 years, and I don’t feel French,” Chalk said. “I’m more French than most of these people walking around here, but I do not feel French at all.

“I feel comfortable, but I don’t feel French.”

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Andscape at the Olympics is an ongoing series exploring the Black athletes and culture around the 2024 Paris Games.

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PARIS – Welcome to Andscape at the Olympics, a video series in which Andscape columnist William C. Rhoden, senior NBA writer Marc J. Spears and Andscape/ESPN commentator Ari Chambers will discuss the key topics about Black athletes and culture at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

In Episode 1, Rhoden and Spears talk about arriving in Paris for the start of the Games and beginning the series at Cafe Tournon, where Black American writers and artists such as Richard Wright, James Baldwin and cartoonist Ollie Harrington came to converse and find community in the 1950s.

The two discuss why Black American artists and writers flocked to France and the welcoming feeling of Paris to Black people (1:01), the chances of the USA Basketball men’s and women’s teams losing in Paris (5:30) and what they’re looking forward to and writing about in Paris, including the opening ceremony, Black gymnasts, breaking, 3×3 basketball (10:10).

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Andscape at the Olympics is an ongoing series exploring Black athletes and culture around the 2024 Paris Games.

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PARIS – For half an hour in a packed auditorium Thursday, Team USA men’s basketball players Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant answered questions about the Olympic experience. They talked about the opening ceremony on the Seine, excursions into the Olympic Village, the competition Team USA is expected to run through.

Finally, I decided to ask Curry a question that I knew was near and dear to his heart – and to his body politic. I asked about his friendship with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Harris was thrust into the political center stage Sunday when President Joe Biden made the stunning announcement that he was withdrawing from the presidential race. Shortly after, Biden said he supported Harris as his successor.

The vice president was born in Oakland, California, served as attorney general of California and was elected U.S. senator. First and foremost, Harris is a lifelong Golden State Warriors fan.

On Thursday, Curry said he planned to return the support.

“It’s a big, big, deal to say the least,” Curry said. “She represents the Bay Area. She’s been a big supporter of us and so want to get that energy right back to her.”

Curry said that he was just excited, “knowing obviously we’re representing our country here and this is a very monumental next couple of months for our country and the direction that we’re headed. So just excited for the journey ahead for her.”

What I find promising about Curry’s unflinching support is that his words — or perhaps the presidential campaign — will reactivate a pro athlete community that largely and lately has been dormant.

With no life-and-death issue to react to and with the preoccupation with personal brands breeding caution, many athletes have gone underground. The upcoming presidential election is a potential tsunami that hopefully will activate the community.

Four years ago, that community, especially the NBA and the NFL, became a powerful public force in supporting, if not shaping, protest. WNBA players famously took down a Republican senatorial candidate players found problematic. Protests by NFL players who knelt during the playing of the national anthem became so powerful that then-President Donald Trump scolded team owners, calling them to keep their players in line.

As much as I advocate for political activism and messaging among athletes, this time around there won’t be only basketball and football players bringing politics into the stadium. Some MLB players, by their own field gestures, have already thrown their hats into the ring in support of Trump, though they denied that’s what they are doing.

Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Taylor Walls had to explain the gesture he made Sunday when he appeared to mimic Trump’s reaction to an assassination attempt during a campaign event in Pennsylvania on July 13. After hitting a double in against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, Walls raised his fist and appeared to mouth “fight, fight, fight,” a clear allusion to Trump’s gesture immediately after being shot on his right ear.

Walls said the gesture was not meant as an endorsement of the former president, but of course it was.

On Sunday, the St. Louis Cardinals celebrated a victory after a home run by outfielder Alec Burleson. Burleson’s home run trot and the Cardinals’ dugout celebration appeared to show Burleson and many of his teammates cupping their ears with one hand while raising their opposite fists in the air. Another Cardinals player, outfielder Lars Nootbaar, also made the gesture as he rounded the bases after hitting a home run an inning later.

Burleson is a DJ and Cardinals designated hitter Matt Carpenter called the celebration an “inside joke,” with Burleson explaining that the cupped hand and arm up was intended to mimic the movements of a DJ.

Right.

On the other hand, it’s all good. I look forward to all pro athletes using their platforms and visibility to support a candidate and promote a cause. This should lead to some very robust clubhouse/locker room discussions.

The upcoming presidential campaign, with Harris likely at the center, will likely be so filled with misogyny and racism, that it will be impossible for anyone to stay on the sideline — including athletes.

“A very interesting time for our country for sure,” Curry said. “The fact that President Biden gave her an endorsement and Vice President Harris is trying to bring her energy to this campaign, and hopefully, she’s on the ticket winning the election.”

Harris visited Team USA training came in Las Vegas recently before the events of earlier this week. Especially in a campaign where the young, the undecided and the disinterested could help decide the election, well-informed athletes like Curry can be valuable assets.

“Hopefully this is a great way to do our part to continue unifying the country,” Curry said Thursday. “Sports brings a lot of people together, and for her in this moment, knowing what’s ahead, it’s just all about positive energy and optimism, knowing how divided our country is right now.”

The NBA season will be gearing up in October. The NFL will be in full force in November. Everyone will be choosing sides. After a period of dormancy, political activism will hopefully reenter the stadium.

On Thursday, USA men’s basketball coach Steve Kerr made his preference clear. “Kamala Harris is a great candidate and I’ll support her,” he said.

I’m looking forward to athletes making a welcome reentry into the political arena.

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Black Americans in France is an ongoing series highlighting African Americans living abroad during the 2024 Paris Games.

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PARIS — “There are three types of Black folk living in Paris,” novelist Jake Lamar told me recently when we met at a cafe near his home in Montmartre.

Lamar, 63, became part of a long rich literary tradition of African American writers in Paris when he moved here in 1993. He settled in the Montmartre district, one of the earliest Black American enclaves in Paris. The French capital has been a magnet for African Americans since the turn of the 20th century. How they have adapted to life in the City of Light has varied.

“There’s one type of American who wants Paris to be just like home and they only hang out with other Americans. They only speak English. They complain about the French all the time, but they like it here. But it’s like mentally, they’ve never left the states,” Lamar said.

The second type of Black expat “just disappears into France,” Lamar said. “They married a French person and just disappeared into France. They didn’t want to hang out with Americans, Black or white. They only spoke French. They often had French kids they spoke to. They worked in a French environment. They just rejected ties to America.”

Lamar counts himself among the third type: the betwixt and between Black expat. “We love being here and will integrate to a certain point, learn the language make a living. But we also remain very strongly tied to America and love hanging out with other Americans because Americans in general are easier to deal with here than in America, Black Americans who made a kind of unusual choice. A lot of us didn’t quite fit in in America. But we weren’t ready to totally reject America and become French — we liked the dual consciousness.”

Despite living in Paris for three decades, Lamar has resisted certain aspects of French culture, just as there are elements of United States culture he will never forsake.

“I’m never going to be a big soccer fan, that’s not going to happen,” he said. “I’ll watch the World Cup and the Euro [European Championships], but I’m just not going to sit down and watch any PSG [Paris Saint-Germain] match. But I’ll watch any NBA game or any NFL game.”

Earlier this month Lamar won the prestigious Dagger Award for crime fiction in the historical novel category for his latest novel “Viper’s Dream.” The award put Lamar in the tradition of Richard Wright and James Baldwin but even more squarely in the tradition of Chester Himes, whose Harlem based detective novels were first published to great acclaim in France.

More significantly, the award, the recognition and Lamar’s consistent outpouring of work puts him in the larger literary tradition of Black American writers who have sought refuge and escape in Paris for more than 100 years.

Lamar was born in the Bronx, New York, and attended Harvard where he majored in history and literature. His first job out of college was with TIME magazine, though when I asked how he made transition from journalist to novelist, Lamar said that being a journalist was never a goal nor an aspiration.

He knew about Black literary tradition in Paris and wanted to become part of it. Lamar wanted to be a writer; specifically, he wanted to be an African American writer living in Paris.

“I started out wanting to be a novelist,” he said. “From the time I read Baldwin and Wright and [Ralph] Ellison and all these great writers when I was in high school, I wanted to be a fiction writer.”

When he was 13 years old, Lamar said that four works changed the course of his life: “The Bluest Eyes,” Toni Morrison’s debut novel; “A Raisin in the Sun,” the iconic play by Lorraine Hansberry; “Black Boy,” Wright’s memoir about growing up in Mississippi; and “Go Tell it On The Mountain,” Baldwin’s autobiographical first novel.

“I was so moved by this book, and I asked my teacher, ‘Who is James Baldwin?’ and he said he was American living in Paris. That seemed like an exotic idea,” Lamar said. “It must have been a little while later that I read “Black Boy,” and I found out that Richard Wright lived in Paris. That was starting to seem like a pattern.”

When he worked at TIME, Lamar hired an agent who suggested that for his first book project Lamar consider writing a memoir although he was only 28 years old at the time. The memoir became “Bourgeois Blues.” Although the memoir was about the strained relationship between Lamar and his father, the book exams the evolution of racial politics in the United States.

He began the book when he was 28, the memoir was published two years later in 1991. When he won the prestigious Lyndhurst Prize the same year, Lamar quit TIME and began laying the foundation to move to Paris. He used the first check to get out of debt, the second check to pay off his college loans. He made the final payment in 1993; the next day he was on a plane to Paris.

“It was always Paris,” Lamar said. “I didn’t want to go to London. I didn’t want to go to Spain. It was Paris and that literary tradition.”

The idea was to stay for a year, “That seemed reasonable. I thought I would have to go back to the States it was gonna be like my last wild adventure before I settled into a teaching job somewhere and then be became a respectable grown up. I’m just going to have this adventure for a year while I work on this novel, because I had the contract for the second book.”

The longer Lamar stayed in Paris, the longer he wanted to stay. He met older writers like Ted Joans and James Emanuel who showed him how to thrive and introduced him to the Black literary community.

“They were links to this history that I that I loved,” he said. “What I learned from men like Ted Joans and James Emanuel was that you could live improvisationally that if you were willing to risk it, you didn’t have to live a standard paycheck to paycheck salaried life. You could dare to deliver improvisationally that was what took courage. But the thing is I loved it so much and was meeting such great people and that was the inspiration to stay.”

Lamar was actually in line back in the United States for a job at Carnegie Mellon teaching creative writing. “And then I met the woman I was going to marry. She was European. she’s an actress and singer and there was nothing for her in America. I was loving it here and I thought ‘OK I’m just going to try it I’m just going to keep winging it. We’re still together so it worked out,’ ” Lamar said.

His decision to move to Paris was rooted in following a literary tradition. The move was not a protest vote against the United States, though there was much to protest against.

“I did not come here to protest,” he said. “But that said, right before I won this grant in 1992 was the verdict in the Rodney King police brutality and the whole uprising in L.A. Then I got this grant and a year later I was gone. I never said to myself, ‘Oh, because of what happened in L.A. I want to get out.’ I wanted to see how things work somewhere else, you know? There was that curiosity. I didn’t find my life in America intolerable, but I was curious.”

Four months after arriving in Paris, Lamar and another Black friend were stopped by Paris police as they were walking back from a gathering through an upscale French neighborhood. Lamar was calm, though his friend lost his cool and fought back.

That was something Lamar knew he could have never survived in the United States.

“That could have happened in America,” he said. “The only differences are that in America, this guy would have probably been shot once he stared fighting the police. They would have shot him and then killed me as a witness.

“It made me realize that whatever anybody will tell you France is not a racial paradise, and I was very happy to get that lesson after four months here rather than going four years thinking, “Hey, everything’s wonderful, everything’s great.”

While there is no earthly paradise for Black Americans, Lamar feels a certain weight has been lifted off his shoulders here. It’s a weight he never knew existed until he left.

“I’ve never felt the kind of daily grind of racism and some attitudes that you get in America,” he said. “I don’t go back much anymore, but I would go back and just go ask for help at the information desk, and there’ll be a white person talking to me in a sneering tone, and I wasn’t used to it anymore. I’m used to being calling Monsieur and being treated with respect. And I go into a shop and the security guards follows me around. I feel it right away. It’s like, ‘Oh, God, I forgot about and this.’ The longer I stayed over here, the more difficult it was for me. If you live in America, you don’t realize, like a fish doesn’t know it’s swimming in water until you throw him out of it.

“I just thought, ‘This is the way it is,’ and then you go someplace else and people are just different. I mean, certainly French people aren’t always nice, but you don’t get that immediate feeling of distrust or suspicion or condescension.’’

As with other Black Americans expats, I wondered how Lamar saw himself. He said his identity was similar to how he saw himself in the United States.

“Someone pointed out to me years ago that when people ask me where I’m from, I don’t say America, I say New York. It’s the same with Paris,’’ Lamar said. “I’ve traveled all over France, but I’ve lived in this one arrondissement for almost half my life. I know my way around Paris. I know the customs in Paris. I care about what happens in the city passionately.

“I don’t feel French, but I do feel Parisian.’’

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Black Americans in France is an ongoing series highlighting African Americans living abroad during the 2024 Paris Games.

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“I actually came here to explore. When I was in college my professor said, ‘The world is your oyster.’ So, I took that and ran with it.” – Shirley Dauger

When Shirley Dauger decided to move from Long Island, New York, to Paris, she made it clear that she was not making a protest move. She was making a move for adventure.

“I didn’t leave, I went to explore,” Dauger said from her home in Paris. “I’m not trying to run away because I’m feeling persecuted. I wanted to know the world.”

As the daughter of parents who immigrated to the United States from Haiti, Dauger appreciated that it was possible to leave your country and love your country.

“They left their country for a better life, but they loved their country,” she said, “They always loved their country, but they knew they had to leave to have a better life, but in no way did they ever talk badly or poorly about their life in Haiti. They wanted more economic opportunities so they came to America. But my parents were very Haitian. They talked about Haiti always in a wonderful light.”

In the 30 years that she has lived in France, Dauger’s life has taken a number of intriguing twists and turns. She has invented and reinvented herself, from being a career nurse, to a singer and finally establishing her own private transportation company, My Pearls of Paris.

“I was free to explore. That’s what being in Europe, or another country allows you to do,” Dauger said. “It frees you from all those stereotypical limitations that sometimes people place on you coming from where you we’re born. You come here and all of a sudden you have access to things you never had before.”

Born in Brooklyn, and raised in Baldwin, Long Island, Dauger took her first trip to Paris with a friend in 1990, a year after graduating from Molloy University with a bachelor’s degree in nursing.

As recent employees of Winthrop University Hospital, the two friends had money. “We were always talking about traveling and wanting to see the world,” she said. “So, we flew into England, then France, then Germany, then to Italy. In Italy, we worked in Venice, Rome, and Florence.”

She loved Paris so much she returned six months after the first trip.

“We came back six months later to France because we loved it so much,” Dauger said. “You know how on tours you don’t get to really see a lot, you get a little taste. But we wanted to come and really get to know the city. So, we came back for 10 days. We loved Paris. Because Paris — especially for us, for Haitians — Paris meant more to us because of the link with Haiti, because Haiti was a French colony.’’

When Dauger returned to Paris in 1991, it was basically to pursue a love interest who she had met during her first trip to Paris. They began dating.

The romantic relationship took her back to Paris several times between 1990 and 1991. During her visits, Dugar became fascinated with the international scene and with meeting so many African Americans who had relocated to France.

“This is new for me. I didn’t know any ex-pats,” she said. “I knew of people leaving countries coming to the United States, but I had never met anybody who left the United States to go abroad. Now I’m meeting them. Some were working for corporations, some moved for a change of scenery. I’m meeting writers, I’m meeting people who moved for different reasons. I thought it was fascinating. I was like, ‘Wow, why didn’t anybody tell me that the international theme was really interesting?’ Had I known, instead of becoming a nurse I may have worked for the UN.”

​Dugar decided that she wanted to relocate and that her nursing degree might be her ticket of passage. “I said to myself, ‘Wait a minute, I’m a nurse. Could my nursing degree work here?’ she said. “I started looking into that. I thought, ‘doesn’t a French heart work like an American heart?’ ”

Dauger made it happen. In 1992, she enrolled in the IFSI nursing school in Versailles. She lived with her French boyfriend and embraced the adventure.

“I’m living in France now, and this is cool,” she said. “From October of 1992 to June of 1993, I am living in Versailles, but in the Paris region. So, I’m living life. I’m traveling, seeing different parts, and getting to master the French, master the culture, master asking for things, buying food. I’m literally living as a French person and going to school.”

While she was in the French nursing school, Dauger did a one-week rotation at the American hospital in France. She knew that’s where she wanted to work. She applied for a position after she earned her degree and passed her boards.

Having a degree was one thing, securing a work permit was something else entirely, especially at a time when jobs were scarce. With no job immediately available, Dauger returned to Long Island and her job at Winthrop Hospital in 1993. To her disappointment, Dauger learned that she did not get the position at the American hospital. Her work permit was denied.

There was one more alternative, and she took it: “In France, there’s not many ways to get work permit, but one of the major ways of getting work permit is to marry.”

​In 1994, at a ceremony in Versailles, Dugar and her French boyfriend were married. She began working in the Coronary Care Unit of the American hospital a year later on Feb. 20, 1995.

Six years later, Dauger and her husband divorced, and a new chapter of her life began: She was on her own for the first time in her life, a single Black American woman in Paris.

“I finally got my very, first apartment because I left home and went to live with him,” she said referring to her former husband. “So, I never lived by myself.”

​She began to broaden her horizons beyond nursing. She took voice lessons, began to sing with choirs, ensembles, bands. Singing became a hobby that she took seriously even as she continued to work at the hospital.

“I start singing, and I’m with other people sharing the love of music. I am living the life,” Dauger said. “I started up with an opera company, I’m singing opera, I’m singing Negro spirituals, gospel. I’m singing arias. I’m singing in Italian. I’m singing in German. I’m singing in all these different languages. I’m doing jazz and I’m enjoying the heck out of myself.”

She became known in certain circles, not as a nurse, but as a U.S.-born singer. That was a special designation, one with historic roots attached to Black American entertainers who had come to Paris for centuries. “All of a sudden you become an ambassador, the fact that you are an American, you become this ambassador, and people are asking you questions left and right, about the United States.

“They’re asking me, ‘Where did you come from? Why did you leave? Where did you used to live? Did you use to live in a hot neighborhood?’ ”

Dauger began to explore the rich history of African Americans who came to Paris, often alone, often to escape white racism. While this was not her reason for relocating, she embraced the adventurous spirit of those Black ex-pats. She became inspired by Josephine Baker, who came to Paris at age 19 and became one of the greatest entertainers of her era.

“When you think of it, Josephine Baker came here by herself, she was often the only Black person. She had a purpose in life,” Dauger said. “At the time I came here, I was looking for my purpose in life. I’m a nurse, yes, but is nursing the only thing that defines you? I don’t want to be just defined by one thing. I think we have lots of talent, and I wanted to explore. I was free to explore that.”

When a friend created a new band with two other musicians, she recruited Dauger to be the band’s singer. The band formed two years later. “And that’s how I met my second husband,” she said. Her soon-to-be-husband was the band’s bass player.

The relationship evolved quickly. They began dating, moved in together and in 2009 they were married. In 2010, Dauger had the couple’s son.

It was at this point that fate threw a curve ball. Shortly after the birth of her son doctors discovered that Dauger had a tumor in her leg. She had an operation and was on the road to recovery. “Everything is fine. I get back on my feet, and this whole time I’m on maternity leave,” she said.

“Then I feel a lump in my right breast.” She was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. Her son was 10 months old at the time of her diagnosis. “I go from maternity leave to sick leave,” she said.

Through rounds of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, Dauger chose to see the glass as half full. “And so, during that whole time, it allowed me to be home. If you want to see the bright side of a fearful moment, I was able to be home with him, see him grow, and still be able to have my salary,” she said.

Dugar was too weak to go back to full-time nursing, though she was able to secure a desk job working in quality assurance. The job was part-time and that meant part-time money. She needed to supplement her income.

“And so, my husband says, ‘Well, have you ever thought of doing a little bit of Uber?’ ” Dauger said. “I’ve always loved to drive. If I go out with friends, I’ll be the one dropping my friends off at their home at night. And my husband’s like, ‘Well, why don’t you get paid for it?’ “

By mid-2017, Dugar began driving Uber on a part-time basis. She loved the job. “I’m driving and I’m loving it. I’m talking to people. I’m meeting people from all over the world. My English comes in real handy, because a lot of English-speaking people don’t know French well enough to converse. And a lot of French drivers can’t speak well enough to converse, either, in English. And since I’m a nurse, I know how to take care of people. I know how to help people. I know how to assist people. I know how to listen to people.”

Through word-of-mouth, passengers began asking if Dauger drove privately. Could they call on her directly?

“Little by little, I was noticing a need for an English-speaking driver. And at the same time, people wanted to ask me questions like, ‘Shirley, where do I go? Where’s the best place to eat?’ Or they would comment, ‘What neighborhoods should I go to?’ And people want to know where the Black neighborhoods were,” she said. “And so Chinese people want to know where the Chinatown is. Mexicans want to know where the Mexicans were. Everybody wants to know where their people are. And little by little, I was able to show them and let them know where the hoods were.”

Driving also gave her time to take care of her special-needs son. She determined that she did not want to go back to the hospital.

“I said to myself, I don’t want to be stuck in a hospital,” she said. “If I went back to nursing, [I’m] stuck for 12 hours. I need to have that flexibility. Driving would be one of the best ways to give you that flexibility. I love driving. Driving is my blood.”

A good friend, Ricky Stevenson, owner of Black Paris Tours, helped by giving Dauger referrals.

“She would often call me to handle a couple of her clients,” Dauger said. “And then little by little, she said, ‘Hey Shirley, I think it would be a great idea if I have your information and people could call on you directly.’

“And that’s where I started getting the idea of maybe there’s a real need for English-speaking drivers, but then they’re also Black American drivers. People feel very comfortable. They feel at-ease. Little by little, I said, I think there’s a real need here and I think this could really turn into something.”

She has grown the business over the last four years, building a robust private clientele. At age 57, with a son a husband and her business, Dauger is comfortable with the life she’s living.

The adventure that drew her to Paris 30 years ago has mellowed into a way of life.

“I came to France because I wanted to smell the roses. I wanted to know what it felt like to live and not to survive,” she said. “Coming to France, I learned how to slow down. So I come here and I’m learning to literally take my time. In the United States, you’re always going a mile a minute. You got this, you got that. You got the to-do list. You are hustling from morning to night. And people look at you. If you’re not doing a hundred million things, they’re looking at you like, ‘Oh, you’re not productive.’

“Whereas in France if you do three things, ‘Oh, you’re highly productive.’ So that’s why French culture is known for the art of living. When clients come from the United States, they have a whole list, ‘Oh, we want to do this, we want to do that.’ And I look at them and I say, ‘But when are you going to have that experience? When are you going to enjoy the French experience of being here?’ “

As she grows her business, Dauger continues to sing. She is a member of a choir and part of an opera company. “We’re putting on plays, in Paris. Little theaters, little venues, but we’re doing it,” she said.

“For me, being here is understanding that there is another way of living. We don’t have to be like a chicken running around without its head. People ask me, ‘What are you doing here?’ And my answer all the time is, ‘I’m living the life. I’m living the life.’”