If I may, I'd like to write about how African-Americans were treated in Sweden during the 1960s.

The majority of African-Americans who came to Sweden during the 1960s can be divided into two categories: Artists, in the form of musicians, writers, filmmakers, painters etc. and political exiles, men and women coming from Civil Rights era US to gather support for their cause after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King and to escape the racial violence that shook the US at this time. Dr. Martin Luther King himself came to Sweden in 1966 to speak at a Beneficiary Concert held for his Civil Rights movement.

Other African-Americans who came to Sweden opened up businesses, studied at high schools or universities but usually found it very hard to find work or to gain any success with their small businesses. Few did, but the majority returned to the United States after a few years.

All in all, African-Americans were well-treated and welcomed by both the Swedish government and the people themselves who sympathized with the Civil Rights cause, but this is not to say that there weren't instances of racism or simply ignorance. Swedish employers were hesitant to grant work to African-American academics despite them having Swedish degrees. Madubuko A. Diakité writes of the example of a newly-graduated African-American with a masters degree in education being asked if he could teach dance, despite the school in question being in need of math and science teachers.

Then there was the African-American deserters from the Vietnam War. While they were granted "humanitarian asylum" starting in 1968, they were not categorized as refugees. One African-American deserter, Terry Whitmore, ended up in Tyresö in 1968. Whitmore, who learned the language, got a job and found an easy way to assimilate himself into the Swedish society was the exception rather than the rule. Most of the other African-American deserters (as well as white) had issues adapting to Swedish society and getting work, resorting to crime and drug abuse which turned the Swedish opinion against the American deserters.

Perhaps the most harrowing display of racism against an African-American comes from 1970. Dr. Jerome H. Holland was appointed as the American ambassador to Sweden by Richard Nixon and when he arrived at Arlanda airport, he was met by anti-Vietnam War protesters who called him a "housenigger". As he travelled from the American embassy to Stockholm Palace to present his credentials to the King, he was met by anti-Vietnam War protesters who yelled "Nigger... Nigger.. Go Home". Do notice that the word here used by the Swedish protesters was "nigger", in English, not the Swedish word neger which is commonly translated to "negro".

That is an extreme example however. More commonly, the experience in Sweden for a young African-American was more that of 16-year old Franklin Belle who came from Brooklyn to study at Borås läroverk in Borås in 1961. He got to stay at the home of a Swedish family throughout his period of study and his arrival even made the news with the headline: "Negro boy member of Borås family, Shall study at Borås läroverk". Franklin himself, 50 years later, remembered his time in Borås with warmth: "I experienced Borås as very open and tolerant in comparison with the US. I was a celebrity here. When I walked on the street, people came up to me and wanted to shake my hand and talk to me. Everyone were very kind and curious." That curiosity stretched very far and there were Swedes who even took locks of his hair as a souvenir when he cut his hair at a local barber shop.