Top Black History Travel Spots
January 23, 2010 by admin
Filed under Entertainment
Website names top tourist destinations for Black History Month -
SoulOfAmerica.com has unveiled its annual list of 12 Top Travel Destinations for Black History Month. Culled from the website’s more than 18,000 pages of black travel content, the list provides links to hundreds of museums, theaters and other cultural places, many off the beaten path. Publishing online since 1997, SoulOfAmerica.com is the first, only comprehensive, most quoted, highest traffic and award-winning Black Travel Website. In a poll of over 100,000 voters, BlackWebAwards.com named SoulfOfAmerica.com the 2007, 2008, 2009 Best Travel Destination Website.
“Most travelers and culture buffs know where to find the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Atlanta or the Apollo Theater in Harlem,” says SoulOfAmerica.com’s Founder and Publisher Thomas Dorsey. “But for those who don’t and for those seeking the gems of black travel destinations that still remain hidden treasures, SoulOfAmerica’s list and photos are a goldmine.”
For 2010, SoulOfAmerica.com’s 12 Top Travel Destination Guides for Black History (listed in alphabetical order and including links to their Black cultural sites) includes:
* Atlanta – Atlanta is home to True Colors Theatre Company, the Soul Food Museum, the UniverSoul Circus and the Atlanta University Complex (of three historically black colleges).
* Baltimore – The Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Museum displays artifacts from the earliest successful Black-owned ship repair business in the nation. The Eubie Blake Jazz Museum & Cultural Center documents the life of the famous ragtime pianist, vaudevillian and jazz composer.
* Birmingham – A major backdrop to the civil rights struggle, this city boasts the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, featuring a statue of Rosa Parks courageously sitting in the front of a bus in Montgomery and Miles College, number one in enrollment growth among all 41 UNCF member institutions.
* Chicago – Home to the President and First Lady, Chicago lays claim to the building that housed Chess Records, immortalized in the film of the same name starring Beyonce, the Muntu Dance Theatre
Group and the Bronzeville Academy & Military Museum, honoring the only WWI infantry unit completely staffed by Black officers.
* Cincinnati – Cincinnati boasts this country’s most comprehensive museum chronicling U.S. slavery, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and Elementz, possibly the first Hip-Hop Youth Arts Center.
* Houston – The achievements of African-American members of U.S. Armed Forces from the Civil War to the Gulf War are featured at the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum. The Ensemble Theatre is one of the only regional theatres that offers works portraying the African-American experience.
* Memphis – Sun Records Museum, Stax Records Museum, Rock n’ Soul Museum and even Graceland provide insight into how the three genres of Black Music ? Blues, Rock ?n Roll, and Soul ? originated and propagated throughout the world.
* New Orleans – Backstreet Cultural Museum features permanent exhibits on Mardi Gras Indians, Traditional Jazz Funerals and Second Line Parades in an earthy neighborhood of Faubourg Treme’ that is felt more than seen.
* New York City – The Big Apple is home to the Langston Hughes Community Library & Cultural Center and the Billie Holiday Theatre.
* Philadelphia – The African-American Museum of Philadelphia constantly re-invents itself with new exhibits and the Blue Horizon Boxing Club, is a historic facility where you can train like the legendary prizefighter, Joe Frazier.
* San Francisco & Oakland – Museum of the African Diaspora, African American Historical & Cultural Society and African American Museum & Library of Oakland let you explore the best of Black History in the Bay Area.
* Washington, DC – Though nothing beats having Barack Obama in the White House, D.C. also offers a slew of museums, including the National Museum of African Art and the Black Fashion Museum, the latter being the only one of its kind in America.
To find all of SoulOfAmerica.com’s U.S. City Guides, visit www.soulofamerica.com/us-city-guides.phtml
Keep telling that history:
Read the novel, Rescue at Pine Ridge, “RaPR”, a great story of black military history…the first generation of Buffalo Soldiers.
How do you keep a people down? ‘Never’ let them ‘know’ their history.
The 7th Cavalry got their butts in a sling again after the Little Big Horn Massacre, fourteen years later, the day after the Wounded Knee Massacre. If it wasn’t for the 9th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers, there would of been a second massacre of the 7th Cavalry.
Read the novel, “Rescue at Pine Ridge”, 5 stars Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the youtube trailer commercial…and visit the website http://www.rescueatpineridge.com
I hope you enjoy the novel. I wrote it from my mini-series movie of the same title, “RaPR” to keep my story alive. Hollywood has had a lot of strikes and doesn’t like telling our stories…its been “his-story” of history all along…until now. The movie so far has attached, Bill Duke directing, Hill Harper, Glynn Turman and a host of other major actors in which we are in talks with…see imdb.com at; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0925633/
When you get a chance, also please visit our Alpha Wolf Production website at; http://www.alphawolfprods.com and see our other productions, like Stagecoach Mary, the first Black Woman to deliver mail for Wells Fargo in Montana, in the 1890’s, “spread the word”.