Joseph Ekwe Bilé [1892-1959] – Cameroon | Germany
Life stories
Robbie Aitken, 2022
Construction engineer, war veteran, singer, dancer, film and theatre performer, anti-colonial and anti-racist activist, Pan-Africanist, and Communist – the Cameroonian Joseph Ekwe Bilé was all these things and more. Without doubt Bilé was one of the most important German-based Black political activists of the Weimar era. His active involvement in the intersecting transnational networks of the Communist International and Pan-Africanism give a voice to Germany’s Black community. He cooperated with prominent and influential Black activists such George Padmore, Tiemoko Garan Kouyate, James Ford and Jomo Kenyatta, publicly denouncing the violence of European empires and demanding equal rights for Black people worldwide. At the same time, a skilled performer, he shared the theatrical stage with global Black stars Josephine Baker in Vienna and Paul Robeson in Berlin.
Contact:
Robbie Aitken, Sheffield Hallam University, r.aitken(at)shu.ac.uk; @rjma_uk#
Literature:
Hakim Adi: Pan-Africanism and Communism: The Communist International, Africa and the Diaspora, 1919–1939, Trenton, New Jersey, 2013.
Robbie Aitken und Eve Rosenhaft: Black Germany - The Making and Unmaking of a Diaspora Community, 1884-1960, Cambridge 2013
Weblinks:
Bebero Lehmann: "Afrodeutsche in der Weimarer Republik", Südlink-Magazin, 2019
Press:
Stationen
Family Background
The Baptist Education of Joseph’s Sister Esther Sike and his Cousin Ebumbu Mbenge
Attending a Technical School at Thuringia
Trained in Germany: his Brother Robert
The Family’s Relationship to the Basel Mission
World War One
Getting Involved
„Bei Lück“
On Stage in Vienna
Challenging Racism
The Community Man
Back in Berlin
On Stage in Berlin
Pan-African Networks
A Trained Marxist
The First International Conference of Negro Workers
The Black Communist
Attending Moscow's Communist University of the Toilers of the East
Sans Papiers
Settling Down