As a person who is exploring possibly leaving the USA in search of better conditions for Black Americans, this book was right on time for me. I absolutely love that the author pulls from her own experiences and well as others. She covers African Americans who left for work, for the military, for special projects, exchange students, traveling performers, and more. And she details what was going on in the USA and the respective country the highlighted individual was in. A must read for any future ex-pat!

3.5 rounded up

This one had some interesting things to say about black people abroad, which should be no surprise. It also gets at the two directional influence between the foreign country and the US through the various individual.

The book read more like a group of short stories, with all the positives and negatives of that genre. By somewhere around 70% I found myself checking and checking how much of the book was actually left and celebrating all the things that go at the end of the book to make it shorter. That is not a good sign. Maybe had I spread it out or skipped the portions that weren't working for me it would have been better? Still a good and useful book showing an important but often overlooked heritage and the intricacies of American racism vs the racism of other countries.