Travel Professionals of Color Association

06/23/2025

Thank you for your continued support Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines!

June 2025 – Royal Caribbean reveals global music icon Diana Ross as the godmother of the new Star of the Seas. Ms. Ross will set the tone for the world’s best family vacation when the celebration kicks off in August 2025 in Port Canaveral (Orlando), Florida, where Star will deliver 7-night vacations to the Eastern and Western Caribbean, including visits to Royal Caribbean’s top-rated exclusive destination in The Bahamas, Perfect Day at CocoCay.

Royal Caribbean says Star combines the best of beach retreats, resort escapes and theme park adventures across eight neighborhoods that are destinations in themselves. The ship will offer 7-night vacations to the most sought-after destinations in the Eastern and Western Caribbean, including the vacation brand’s top-rated Perfect Day at CocoCay in The Bahamas.

06/21/2025

Congratulations! TPOC Partner

06/19/2025

LEST WE FORGET!

06/19/2025

06/19/2025

Opening on Juneteenth.

https://thegrio.com/2025/06/16/the-culture-still-runs-through-us-ma-daisys-restaurant-honors-gullah-geechee-roots-and-black-pride/?fbclid=IwY2xjawLAWItleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFMYlhvRFZHWlBGcFZ0V0JoAR7OjgmzRxQ_uY0vR94P89hd2q_1rqUcPDWrktW29hbyTVP1ghZEwkvvCNr8EA_aem_-zV1BXUPMyimUoyA-6bZJQ

Ma Daisy's new restaurant and cultural center in Bluffton, SC, celebrates Gullah Geechee heritage through food, history, and community.

06/15/2025

In celebration of Juneteenth!

Join Chef Michael Twitty, a multiple James Beard Award winner and renowned Black food historian, alongside Chef Adrian Lipscombe for a deep dive into Black culinary traditions and the stories behind them.

In honor of Juneteenth, Michael will share powerful insights that celebrate the roots and richness of Black food culture.
RSVP now with the link below to secure your spot and upgrade your lunch hour with knowledge that matters.

https://shorturl.at/y3A0D

05/28/2025

TPOC Membership Information Session May 29, 2025 @ 7:00 pm. If you RSVPed you should have received login information from our membership chair, Stacey Lucas.

The meeting will include a presentation on our upcoming trips, testimonies from a travel advisor, and a friends & family member along with highlights from our past journeys, and plenty of time to ask questions from fellow explorers.

Membership has its privileges.

05/26/2025

The Overlooked Black History of Memorial Day

Nowadays, Memorial Day honors veterans of all wars, but its roots are in America’s deadliest conflict, the Civil War.

A commemoration organized by freed slaves and some white missionaries took place on May 1, 1865, in Charleston, S.C., at a former planters’ racetrack where Confederates held captured Union soldiers during the last year of the war. At least 257 prisoners died, many of disease, and were buried in unmarked graves, so black residents of Charleston decided to give them a proper burial.

About 10,000 people, mostly black residents, participated in the May 1 tribute, according to coverage back then in the Charleston Daily Courier and the New York Tribune. Starting at 9 a.m., about 3,000 black schoolchildren paraded around the race track holding roses and singing the Union song “John Brown’s Body,” and were followed by adults representing aid societies for freed black men and women. Black pastors delivered sermons and led attendees in prayer and in the singing of spirituals, and there were picnics. James Redpath, the white director of freedman’s education in the region, organized about 30 speeches by Union officers, missionaries and black ministers. Participants sang patriotic songs like “America” and “We’ll Rally around the Flag” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In the afternoon, three white and black Union regiments marched around the graves and staged a drill.

The New York Tribune described the tribute as “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.” The gravesites looked like a “one mass of flowers” and “the breeze wafted the sweet perfumes from them” and “tears of joy” were shed.

Photo: An April 1865 photo of the graves of Union soldiers buried at the race course-turned-Confederate-prison where historians believe the earliest Memorial Day ceremony took place.

Source: Time Magazine

05/23/2025

Last day to RSVP!

Learn more about TPOC and what we have to offer. TPOC Membership Information Session May 29, 2025 @ 7:00 pm
The meeting will include a presentation on our upcoming trips, testimonies from a travel advisor, and a friends & family member along with highlights from our past journeys, and plenty of time to ask questions from fellow explorers.

Use the link below to RSVP by May 23. https://forms.gle/cHUkucoYGmid9VEd6

Membership has its privileges.

05/07/2025

Nowhere is this clearer than in the story of Black American tailoring and the legacy of the Black dandy.

05/05/2025

Happy Cinco de Mayo!