Filmed in Europe, the United States, and Jamaica, “Strolling,” a Web series by Cecile Emeke, is an addictive meditation on the global black diaspora. Photograph Courtesy “Strolling”

It seems fitting that Cecile Emeke, a British filmmaker of Jamaican descent, was partly inspired by James Baldwin when creating her cult-hit Web series “Strolling.” In “The Devil Finds Work,” a book-length essay of film criticism, Baldwin wrote, “The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he, or she, has become a threat.” Elsewhere, Baldwin stated, “The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.”

In “Strolling,” Emeke is documenting the global black diaspora, from children of African immigrants in Paris and Rome, to black Americans in New York, to young natives of Kingston. During intimately and gracefully shot interviews, in which she follows the subjects around their cities, the ensuing meditations often focus on issues of immigration, race, nationality, class, and, ultimately, belonging. Black populations across the world have at least a loose sense of their counterparts—descendants of slaves in Brazil and Haiti, products of migration in Western Europe—but “Strolling” makes their existences, their joys and worries, real in a tangible, addictive way.

“I was tired of seeing the phrase ‘African diaspora’ thrown around without ever really attempting to address the _entire _diaspora,” Emeke said. “I wanted to create an affirming space for an intra-communal conversation.” In the Rome episode, Bellamy and Loretta, two stylish and beautiful daughters of African immigrants, talk about how difficult it is to get Italian citizenship, even if you were born and grew up in the country—unless you’re a soccer star. “They do everything to delay the acceptance of me being Italian,” Bellamy says. The two women grow impassioned as they discuss the hypocrisies of how immigration is denigrated in Italy, as thousands of African refugees die on their way to the country’s borders, despite the pride in Italian immigrants living in numerous countries abroad.

They move on to the indignities their parents faced in leaving their homes. “She was a professor of chemistry and biology, and when she came here they didn’t recognize her degree … so she had to clean houses,” Loretta says of her mother. Bellamy reflects, “You come here hoping for a better life, to see that all your degrees, all your efforts, have no value at all. It’s really sad.” They mention the pressure they feel to make up for the sacrifices their parents made, their frustration at not being able to find makeup suited to their skin tones, and their desire to resist prioritizing marriage and children. Loretta says, “Every time, I have to explain myself: you know, they ask you, ‘Why are you here in Italy? Why do you speak Italian so well? How did you come here? How long have you been here?’ ” And Bellamy concludes, “Just because I’m black, I’m considered a foreigner.… I thought I was an Italian.”

In the Brussels episode, a middle-aged black American woman reflects on her displacement in the city: “There is a kind of sensibility that we are invisible. I’ve had numerous instances where people walk straight into me,” she says. “There’s a sort of inherent behavior here that black people are not relevant.” Emeke told me that the shared sentiments the subjects of her videos in European capitals speak about—of not belonging, of feeling invisible, of struggling to define their identities—make sense: “There is a long history of anti-blackness, colonization, and slavery throughout Europe, most of which has been erased,” she said. When Emeke ventures to the United States, her interviewee in New York laments that she feels there is an American commodification of black culture without a respect and regard for black American people and their history. The woman sits on an apartment building stoop while she talks, and the simplicity of the visuals belies the fraught aspects of culture and color you see her trying to work through.

Much of the appeal of “Strolling” lies in the still-uncharted, and so revolutionary, concept of black people on the screen talking about their place in the world. Emeke’s camera lingers on their faces, the ways they move, their tics and flairs in clothing and accessories. Because of her attention to detail, black people may have never as looked as good onscreen as they do here. Viewers, according to the show’s online feedback, find the series enlightening, comforting, and even empowering. “I’m just glad that for a lot of people it's a place where they can finally see themselves,” Emeke said.

In Kingston, a pair of friends, a young man and woman, talk about the links between class and language and about how, even in a majority-black country, skin color can still divide. “Sometimes I just have to laugh, and I think that’s the saving grace of Jamaican people, because we’re so funny,” the man says … laughing. While “Strolling” is a serious show, it does have moments of lightness. The episodes can feel like watching new friends telling you their deepest thoughts, confiding in you their secrets. For those ten to twenty minutes, you are a welcomed observer into a life that may be drastically different from yours—and you can’t look away.