This article was originally published by The Emancipator, a nonprofit digital magazine that reimagines the nation’s first abolitionist newspapers for a new day.
Twanna Hines watched her television in shock on Jan. 6, 2021, from her Washington, D.C., home as hundreds of people who believed the lie that Donald Trump had won the 2020 election stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Then she made a decision: It’s time to leave.
“That’s when I thought this has boiled over,” Hines said. “This is a fever pitch. I remember thinking they were there to hang Mike Pence, a straight White, conservative, married, Christian man. After that, I said, ‘No one is saving this country.’”
After researching several countries, she settled in Portugal and moved to Lisbon later that year.
She’s not alone. For an increasing number of Black Americans, the Jan. 6 insurrection was a menacing prelude to our current political climate. It foreshadowed when far-right fundamentalists will have a seemingly blank check to execute an extremist agenda. A growing number of Black Americans, seeking a respite from racism and toxic anti-Black American policies, are expatriating in a social movement known as “Blaxit.”
It is difficult to track specific figures on the numbers of Black American expatriates. However, more broadly, an estimated 5.5 million Americans live abroad, according to figures from the Association of Americans Resident Overseas.
A Monmouth University poll released last year shows a sharp uptick in the number of Americans who wish to make an exit over the past 50 years. The population of American expatriates was pretty low in the decades just after World War II. In 1974, roughly 10% of Americans expressed the desire to live abroad. However, over the next four decades that number steadily increased, according to analysts. In 2024, that number jumped to 34%.
Some Black expatriates face racism and discrimination when they move abroad – especially in such places as Asia, with nations that tend to be more racially homogenous, and Europe, which is in the throes of its own political and cultural conservative retraction.
These facts aside, experts who track living abroad trends, say they notice a spike in Black Americans in expatriating. Jennifer Stevens, executive editor at International Living, a global lifestyle magazine, said that at a recent conference, she heard many attendees say they believe it’s time to pull the trigger.
“We are definitely seeing a trend of more people of color wanting to get themselves together and get their ducks in a row,” Stevens said. “They speak to the idea that the current climate [politically in the U.S.] is a motivator for them going abroad.”
For Grace Ancrum, the prospect of a second Trump presidency was a neon sign that told her, “It’s time to leave.”
“My partner’s friend was the victim of a hate crime after the Trump rally in [Madison Square Garden],” said Ancrum, 24, an event and business coordinator for Bloomberg LP. “I don’t want to be in a space where someone feels empowered to do this. I’ve been through this as a teen and now those people are adults, so do I want to continue fighting or explore a different climate?”
Ancrum said she and her mother will wait until she completes her graduate degree in about a year before packing up and moving to London. Her company is already well-established in the United Kingdom, so the transition would be easy.
As a Black woman and a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, she worries she would be unfairly targeted by conservative politicians.
“I’ve been an activist for so long doing a lot of queer activism,” Ancrum said. “It’s a battle for me because there’s so much I see myself doing here so I intend to come back. But for me and my mental health, I don’t want to be in a space where people have that power.”
Africa welcomes Black Americans ‘home’
Moving to Africa meant freedom for Siete Saudadies, 35, a native New Yorker who has lived abroad for years and settled in Cape Town, South Africa. Since expatriating, his life is healthier and he feels welcomed in ways he did not in America.
“I don’t think there is any place in the world more dangerous for an African American than America. When you experience other African Americans here, it’s from a place of kinship. I became truly free and it allowed me to decolonize aspects of my manhood and lean into being a free Black man abroad.” — Siete Saudadies
Last year, Benin announced it would grant citizenship to those from the African diaspora who can prove that their ancestors were trafficked and enslaved. The move is an attempt to acknowledge Benin’s role in the slave trade. During the 18th and 19th centuries, an estimated 1.5 million people were kidnapped and brutally trafficked out of a territory that includes modern-day Benin.
In 2019, Ghana announced its “Year of Return,” which encouraged Black people across the diaspora to return to their homeland to invest their funds and lives in the continent. It was linked to the 400th anniversary of enslaved Africans landing at Jamestown, Virginia.
Ghanaian government officials touted it as a “welcome back” and began to grant citizenship to those Black people who sought it. In a ceremony in November, 524 people received citizenship through the program, according to the Associated Press. Most of them were Black Americans.
Shannan Akosua Magee, 50, president of the African American Association of Ghana, the group that helped facilitate “The Year of Return,” said social media influence is playing a role, particularly in attracting millennials and Gen Z to Ghana. “With Snapchat and Instagram, you can be in Ghana every day so people have shifted their mindsets.”
Millions are watching TikTok, Instagram, and other social media posts from creators that offer a view of life abroad and instructions on how to make it happen.
Friendlier Southern climes
Panama often ranks high on Black expatriate social media lists as particularly diverse, welcoming, and affordable, with a large Black expat community. Costa Rica and Mexico are also often high on the lists.
Charlotte Van Horn, founder of Black Expats in Panama, first traveled to the country with her Panamanian husband in 2005. They bought property there, but one incident expedited their decision to move.
“I was introducing Panama to people and then George Floyd happened, then ‘Karen’ in the park, and COVID all collided,” said Van Horn, who is from Glassboro, New Jersey.
Trump’s reelection lit a fire under people previously on the fence about leaving the U.S.
“From the day of the election, our tours have been sold out,” she said. “People are on edge and are saying ‘I’ve got to do something new, I’ve got to get out of the States.’”
Other Black expatriates who spoke with The Emancipator said this trend will pick up momentum amid the mass expulsion of migrants, ending federal and corporate diversity policies, the erosion of women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, and attacks on a free press.
What Eartha, Josephine, and James knew …
Racism and racial politics have historically driven African Americans to places abroad as a way to live freely and comfortably in their own skin. Legendary performer Josephine Baker, and literary icon James Baldwin both lived in France.
Eartha Kitt, another Black entertainment legend, suffered infamous indignity when she spoke out against the Vietnam War at a luncheon hosted by then-first lady, Lady Bird Johnson in 1968. She was barred from performing in the U.S. and had to rebuild her status by performing in Europe for a decade. The CIA, it was later revealed, even kept a dossier on her.
A cadre of other Black luminaries – from Paul Robeson to W.E.B. Du Bois – also left U.S. soil at various points and voiced frustration over the fact that justice seemed perpetually elusive to Black people no matter what they had given to America – labor, children, even their lives.
For some, expatriating is the contingency plan
Current expats said they foresaw this years ago.
“I think the political situation in the U.S. is a continuation of what it’s been since 2016: increasingly unstable, unpredictable, and no sign of improvement for Black people so you have to have a contingency plan,” said Chris Campbell, 34, who lives between Lisbon, Portugal and Florence, Italy, and runs Bespoke Portugal, a consultancy for people considering living or investing in the country.
Campbell noted that those with financial means are most able and likely to leave. However, increasingly, the current political climate has compelled a growing number of people of varying economic means to map out exit strategies.
“The fact that [Trump] won again was the ‘wait-and-see’ moment,” Campbell explained. “When he won the popular vote and electoral and the Republicans controlling both houses was the push people needed.”