History of Black Travel

08/04/2022

What happened to the Washington, D.C. sites featured in the 1940 edition of The Negro Motorist Green Book? Blake Rogers Wilson, a D.C.-based historian and PhD candidate for U.S. history at Howard University provides insight!



https://wapo.st/3NVPcAd

A Jim Crow-era guide for Black travelers gave me a window into the past of a rapidly changing D.C.

02/03/2022

Are you familiar with Kellee Edwards? An avid traveler, licensed pilot, and advanced open water scuba diver, she became the first solo Black woman to host a travel series “Mysterious Islands” for the Travel Channel in 2017.

Mysterious Islands is a travel series that explores some of the most remote islands in the world that the general population has probably never even heard of. This feat earned her the distinction of becoming the first Black woman to host a show on the network. She also co-hosted the channel’s The Trip 2018.

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism Reset.
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01/03/2022

Check out article in Conde Nast traveler by History Of Black Travel project team members: Stefanie Benjamin, Ph.D. and Alana Dillette, Ph.D. who write about why "now is the time to teach the public about the impact of the African Diaspora on the travel industry."



https://bit.ly/3voNbFU

Now is the time to teach the public about the impact of the African Diaspora on the travel industry.

01/03/2022

Are you familiar with Fort Mose, the first legally sanctioned free African settlement in what would become the United States? provides insight.

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

And thanks to Tripadvisor for supporting this project and our Black History Month campaign.

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism Reset.

28/02/2022

Booker T. Washington was an African American educator, author, and leader. He was also a groundbreaker as in 1899, the took his first trip to Europe during a leave of absence from his tenure at Tuskegee University.

In his autobiography, Up from Slavery, Washington describes the release of his cares and burdens lifting at a rate of “a pound a minute”. With his influence and leadership amongst the Black community at the time, Washington’s trip would have been regarded at the highest level and influenced many.

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism Reset.

28/02/2022

Today (February 28th) is the final day to enter the History Of Black Travel giveaway to win two travel-related prizes. Enter via https://bit.ly/3Gvg7Ou

Check out the History Of Black Travel website from Black Travel Alliance and Tourism RESET. https://www.historyofblacktravel.com

26/02/2022

From the archives, Travel Weekly article, where History Of Black Travel team members, Martinique Lewis and Patricia King share insights on why its important to catalog the Black travel experience. https://bit.ly/36y1Y6E

With the creation of the History of Black Travel Timeline, Black travelers now have a place to learn about events that shaped their travel experience.

25/02/2022

Check out this video with featuring three Black pioneers in aviation:

• Captain Marlon Dewitt Green, an African-American pilot whose landmark United States Supreme Court decision in 1963 helped dismantle racial discrimination in the American passenger airline industry
• Jill Elaine Brown, the first African American woman to be hired as a pilot for a major airline
• Perry H. Young Jr., the first African American to be hired by a commercial airline in the United States

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

And thanks to for supporting this project and our Black History Month campaign.

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism Reset.

24/02/2022

Have you visited the National Museum of African American Music, located in Nashville, Tennessee?

Opened on January 18, 2021, the museum’s mission is to educate the world, preserve the legacy, and celebrate the central role African Americans play in creating the American soundtrack.’

Upon entering, guests who visit the museum are immersed in generations of musical history created and inspired by African Americans. The National Museum of African American Music features seven content galleries — six permanent and one rotating — that chronicle Black musical traditions from the 1600s to the present day. More than 50 genres and subgenres of American music are explored, from spirituals and gospel to jazz, blues, R&B, hip-hop, and more.

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism RESET .

22/02/2022

Have you visited the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culturein Washington DC?

It opened on September 24, 2016, as the 19th museum of the Smithsonian Institution. With over 36,000 artifacts featured in the four-level museum, it is the only national museum solely dedicated to documenting African American life, history, and culture.

The museum allows visitors to walk the path of American Americans from slavery to civil rights to today’s Black Lives Matter movement.

21/02/2022

Can you name the first African American travel agency that is still in existence today? Via video, provides insight.

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In 1955, during the decade known as “the golden age of travel,” Freddye Henderson and her husband, Jacob, opened Henderson Travel Service in Atlanta to assist African-Americans who wanted to travel internationally. The agency planned and booked thousands of trips for black travelers, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1964 visit to Oslo, Norway, where he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement.

During the agency’s early years, the Hendersons saw the potential of specializing in travel to Africa (then known as the “Dark Continent”), planning trips to encourage travelers to explore the continent’s diverse, rich cultures. This travel agency provided services, including chartering planes to West Africa, where there were no commercial flights.

Henderson Travel Service has survived the increase of travel apps and online travel aggregators by banking on its well-renowned reputation and expanding its tours to group-requested destinations such as India, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia, while still managing a few Africa tours per year.

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

And thanks to Tripadvisor for supporting this project and our Black History Month campaign.

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism RESET.

20/02/2022

Are you familiar with the Civil Rights Trail? It is a coalition of more than 100 churches, public service buildings, museums, and other landmarks in the South of the United States.

These played a pivotal role in advancing social justice in the 1950s and 1960s, including those for Black road travelers. Some of the sites on the trail include the birthplace of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, New Zion Baptist Church, and many more.

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

And thanks to Tripadvisor for supporting this project and our Black History Month campaign.

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism RESET.

19/02/2022

The development of Black leisure travel in the United States is intertwined with the Civil Rights Movement. One of the groups that helped progress the movement was the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and their Freedom Riders.

Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions, Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses, waiting rooms, and restaurants were unconstitutional.

The Southern states had ignored the rulings, and the federal government did nothing to enforce them. The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C. on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

And thanks to Tripadvisor for supporting this project and our Black History Month campaign.

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism RESET.

18/02/2022

Travel within the United States or head to Europe? Between the 1920s to 1960s, African American intellectuals such as Josephine Baker, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Langston Hughes traveled to Paris to escape the racism and segregation happening in the United States.

As a reflection of these travels, in his 1951 essay, I Choose Exile, author, and poet Richard Wright asks, “Why have I decided to live beyond the shores of my native land? It is because I love freedom and I tell you frankly that there is more freedom in one square block of Paris than there is in the entire United States!”

These travel experiences made a significant impact on the perception of travel as a form of transformation for African Americans.

16/02/2022

Are you familiar with North & South Pole Explorers: Matthew Alexander Henson, George Washington Gibbs Jr., and Barbara Hillary? Here, provides insight on these arctic trailblazers.

• Matthew Alexander Henson, who between 1908-1909 was part of an expedition to the North Pole and penned a memoir called, “A Negro Explorer at the North Pole”, published in 1912.
• George Washington Gibbs Jr., the first Black person to reach the South Pole as part of the United States Antarctic Service Expedition (1939–1941), also known as Byrd’s Third Antarctic Expedition
• Barbara Hillary, the first Black woman to reach both the North Pole (April 23, 2007) and the South Pole (January 6, 2011).

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

And thanks to Tripadvisor for supporting this project and our Black History Month campaign.

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism RESET .

15/02/2022

Did you know that ExxonMobil’s predecessor, Standard Oil of New Jersey distributed The Negro Motorist Green Book around the United States through their Esso service stations?

In the 1940s, more than a third of Esso dealers were Black, and the company also employed African Americans as chemists, pipeline workers, mariners, and office clerks.

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism RESET.

12/02/2022

Safety is a major concern for Black travelers today, just as it was during the era of segregation and Jim Crow laws. And one of the most important tools for helping African Americans navigate travel from 1936 to 1966 was The Negro Motorist Green Book, published by Victor Hugo Green with his wife Alma Duke Green as editor.

Here, provides insight on The Negro Motorist Green Book which provided insight on the rest stops, hotels and restaurants that welcomed African Americans. For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

And thanks to Tripadvisor for supporting this project and our Black History Month campaign.

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism RESET .

11/02/2022

Are you familiar with the National Brotherhood of Skiers and the epic annual ski summits they organize?

Art Clay and Ben Finley organized the first Black Ski Summit in Aspen, Colorado, in 1973, and over 350 skiers attended it. Chartered in 1974, the National Brotherhood of Skiers was incorporated as a non-profit organization in Illinois in 1975.

The annual summits continue today, and they bring together members from 50 clubs and thousands of supporters from across the United States and internationally for a week of winter sports fun.

10/02/2022

Are you familiar with one of the first major Black festivals, the Harlem Cultural Festival, also known as Black Woodstock.

Here, provides insight on the Harlem Cultural Festival, held during the summer of 1969. It was a series of music concerts held in Harlem to celebrate African American music and culture and to promote the continued politics of Black pride.

Notable participants included Nina Simone, B.B. King, Chuck Jackson, Abbey Lincoln & Max Roach, The 5th Dimension, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, and Moms Mabley, among many others.

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

And thanks to Tripadvisor for supporting this project and our Black History Month campaign.

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism RESET.

09/02/2022

Did know that we have a competition running connected to our Black History Month campaign? Via www.historyofblacktravel.com/giveaway, you can enter to win two prizes:

One (1) $500 USD Travel Voucher and One (1) iFLY Luggage set

First Prize: One (1) $500 USD Travel Voucher.
This travel voucher can be used to purchase air travel-related items for your next trip on a major U.S. airline.

Second Prize: One (1) iFLY Luggage set.
Choose a luggage set from iFLY Luggage valued up to $500 USD.

There are a number of ways to enter including sharing content from the HistoryOfBlackTravel.com. So click on the link (www.historyofblacktravel.com/giveaway) to get started!

08/02/2022

Have you been inspired to travel by a TV show? And can you name any past or current travel shows with a Black host?

Sixty-something best friends Pat Johnson and Regina Fraser were the first known Black female hosts of a travel show when they launched the Emmy-award-winning series, Grannies on Safari (GOS) on PBS in 2006.

The Grannies On Safari series ran for four years and aired across 120 countries. It won two awards, including one (1) Emmy and one (1) Telly.

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

And thanks to Tripadvisor for supporting this project and our Black History Month campaign featuring Phil Calvert (aka ).

Note: The Black Travel Alliance created the History Of Black Travel in partnership with Tourism RESET

07/02/2022

Have you visited HistoryOfBlackTravel.com and checked out the timeline? There are 140+ Black travel stories across twelve categories, including:

Ally, Accommodations, Explorers, Government, GroundBreakers, Leisure (Culture, Events, Outdoors, Food & Drink, Retail), Migration, Organizations, Publishing, Slavery, Television
Transportation.

Note: The History Of Black Travel timeline entries related to slavery, migration, and the government are included to provide background and context for many Black leisure travel developments.

Anyway, check out the website and let us know what you think.

06/02/2022

Are you with familiar with any historically Black beaches?

Here, Phil Calvert () provides insight on Highland Beach Resort, one of the most prominent resort towns in Highland Beach in Maryland. Charles and Laura Douglass established the town in 1893, originally naming it Arundel-on-the-Bay.

Charles was a son of Frederick Douglass and a Civil War veteran who had bought the Highland land after another Maryland resort denied him entry. In 1922, Highland became the first Black town incorporated in the state. It became the first African American municipality in Maryland.

For more history facts related to Black travel, visit HistoryOfBlackTravel.com.

And thanks to Tripadvisor for supporting this project and our Black History Month campaign.

05/02/2022

The History Of Black Travel was created byThe Black Travel Alliance in partnership with Tourism RESET, and for Black History Month 2022, we have partnered with Tripadvisor.

Through the partnership with Tripadvisor, Black travel content creator Phil Calvert, better known on social media as , has created and we will publish ten sixty-second videos to promote stories featured on the History Of Black Travel website.

They include videos on Black pioneers in aviation, North & South Pole explorations, Harlem Cultural Festival, and the development of Black leisure travel, among others.

Check out this video by Martinique Lewis, Black Travel Alliance co-Founder, President, and Research Committee Members as she details the campaign.

01/02/2022

We are excited to announce that for Black History Month 2022, we have partnered with Tripadvisor to showcase some of the amazing content from the History Of Black Travel website.

https://bit.ly/35vCkim

Find about the History Of Black Travel campaign with Tripadvisor, the world’s largest travel guidance platform, as the headline sponsor.

01/02/2022

A core team from the Black Alliance in partnership with Tourism RESET spent hundreds of volunteers creating the History Of Black Travel, geared towards educating the public on how the African Diaspora has traveled to every inch of the Earth, progressively making their mark within the travel industry, from centuries past into the present day.

During the month of February, we will be sharing some of the stories related to Black travel uncovered, but for now, here is a list of the core team members who made it all happen.

* Ursula Petula Barzey, Founder & Digital Content Creator, CaribbeanAndCo.com
* Gabby Beckford, Gen Z Travel Expert, Packslight.com
* Stefanie Benjamin Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
* Donna-Kay Delahaye, Travel Blogger, Photographer, Digital Content Creator, HuesOfDelahaye.com
* Alana Dillette Ph.D., Assistant Professor, L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, San Diego State University
* Patricia King, Content Creator, SavvyTraveling.com
* Martinique Lewis, Diversity in Travel Consultant, Martysandiego.com
* Kerwin Mckenzie, Author, Content Creator, Speaker, Passrider.com
* Davida Wulff-Vanderpuije, Content Creator & Audio Storyteller, WondersOfWanders.com

13/07/2021

A year in the making, the countdown begins for the launch of the History Of Black Travel website created by the Black Travel Alliance in partnership with Tourism RESET.