The earliest biography is that of Anton Wilhelm Amo, who was the first African to study and complete a PhD at a European university and who came to Germany in the early 1700s as a present for the Duke of Wolfenbuettel. He wrote his doctoral thesis about the legal position of Blacks in Europe, and became one of the contributors to the early German Enlightenment movement.

Also featured are 19th century Afro-German teacher and housekeeper Henriette Alexander, Martin Dibobe, a native of Cameroon, then a German colony, who came to Berlin in 1896, and eventually became a local celebrity and train conductor. His trail is lost after his return to Africa in 1922.

The remaining biographies feature a diverse mix of remarkable individuals — artists, medical doctors, journalists, theologians and others — from the early decades of the 20th century, including Afro-German Wehrmacht soldier Hans Hauck who credited his survival to his military service, to our current times.