Cities such as Hamburg and Frankfurt, which were formerly centres of occupation forces following World War II and more recent immigration, have substantial Afro-German communities.

[1] During the 1720s, Ghana-born Anton Wilhelm Amo was sponsored by a German duke to become the first African to attend a European university; after completing his studies, he taught and wrote in philosophy.

[4] At the 1884 Berlin Congo conference, attended by all major powers of the day, European states divided Africa into areas of influence which they would control.

Interracial couples in the colonies were subjected to strong pressure in a campaign against miscegenation, which included invalidation of marriages, declaring the mixed-race children illegitimate, and stripping them of German citizenship.

[5] During extermination of the Nama people in 1907 by Germany, the German director for colonial affairs, Bernhard Dernburg, stated that "some native tribes, just like some animals, must be destroyed".

[16] Most single ethnic German mothers kept their "brown babies", but thousands were adopted by American families and grew up in the United States.

[17] Audre Lorde, Black American writer and activist, spent the years from 1984 to 1992 teaching at the Free University of Berlin.

During her time in Germany, often called "The Berlin Years," she helped push the coining of the term "Afro-German" into a movement that addressed the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexual orientation.

She encouraged Black German women such as May Ayim and Ika Hügel-Marshall to write and publish poems and autobiographies as a means of gaining visibility.

[citation needed] Since 1981, Germany has seen immigration from African countries, mostly Nigeria, Eritrea and Ghana, who were seeking political asylum, work or studies in German universities.

[citation needed] According to a survey conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, which asked over 16.000 immigrants, including over 6.700 people born in sub-Saharan Africa, the highest rate of reported discrimination in the last years, was in German-Speaking Europe, particularly Germany with 54% reporting having experienced racist harassment, well above the EU average of 30%.

She was co-editor of the book Farbe bekennen,[20] whose English translation was published as Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out.