Madrid Unearths Hidden Black History Through Launched Walking Tours
Certain walking tours in Madrid offer a deeper look into Spain’s lesser-known Black history.
A new focus within the capital city of Spain provides visitors with new insight into its own Black community. Typically, these histories sit under the radar in favor of more positive perceptions of European achievement.
However, these walking tours bypass the popular architecture and art to talk about this darker history, such as Spain’s role in colonialism. Spain was one of the many European countries heavily involved in the Transatlantic slave trade, with these tour guides ensuring that the legacy of those impacted remains alive.
This has become especially important as this history in rarely taught in Spanish classrooms. This erasure left many Black Spaniards feeling unrepresented in their country’s legacy. However, one guide is doing his part to promote Black history across Europe.
Kwame Ondo, originally from Equatorial Guinea–a former colonial entity of Spain–later settled with his family to the Spanish region of Andalusia, Reuters reports. Describing the nation’s past as a “silenced history,” Ondo now operates a tour line, Afroiberica Tours, to unearth this diverse underbelly of Spain.
While all are welcome to learn more about Spain’s true diversity, he especially wants Black Americans visiting the country to learn about this sector of the Diaspora. He aims for Black people to discover this connection within Spain that mainstream teachings often disregard.
Other tours also promote a Black Spanish heritage and foundation in their offerings. While more provocative in nature, the “Black Madrid” activist collective hosts in own tours that seek to hold Spain accountable for its role in enslaving Africans.
Its coordinators directly call out the use of slave labor to further development across Spanish regions. They want Spain and the world to recognize Black people’s undeniable impact on societal advancement.
“We can’t understand the industrial development in Catalonia or the Basque Country without knowing that it comes from the slave trade,” explained co-coordinator Nieves Cisneros.
The tours slightly differ in intention than Ondo’s, who takes on a more educational approach that direct activism. However, both tours are part of a growing movement to spotlight African European histories left in the shadows for more favorable perceptions.
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