Why did history books and textbooks, fiction or documentary films, plays, historical magazines, edited or produced in Europe during the 20th century ignore the history of Africans in Europe? The first observation that we make on reading this collective work born from a colloquium organized in December 2005 by the House of Africa in Toulouse (LA MAT) is the following: part of the multicultural history of the He ancient and modern Europe - that relating to the presence of Africans - has been obscured. Yet the place occupied by hundreds of thousands of Africans and their descendants in European countries before racism and prejudice became dominant mainly from the 18th century is far from marginal. This European past, which emerges from the shadows of oblivion in this unique historical essay, shows that Africans were emperors in Rome, led the Christian Church in the Vatican, were among its most eminent thinkers, scholars, scholars, army generals, artists and writers, etc. A story so little known that 21st century Europeans will be the first to be surprised to discover it.