00:00This is Colin, Dr. Colin Williams. He's 28 years old, recently graduated, and exploring the world.
00:20This summer, he orchestrated a trip with 30 of his friends to Antigua, a tiny island in the West
00:25Indies. This is a young group of men and women of color, black and Latino mostly, and they are
00:32ambitious, they're curious, they have intellectual passion and desire, so they want to see what's going
00:38on. Ah, millennials. The cynical would call them entitled, impulsive, selfish even. But for African
00:47Americans, the stamp millennial works in an entirely different context, and one of the ways it's
00:53manifested today is through the black travel movement. But first, let's go back.
01:12Jim Crow was everywhere. It wasn't just in the South, it was everywhere. If you were planning a trip,
01:18I stayed by car. It was pretty scary.
01:27There were some towns called sundown towns, that if you were traveling through there after sundown,
01:34you could get into a lot of trouble. You get arrested, or you could get bodily harmed, or you could
01:41possibly even get killed. As far as staying in motels or hotels, that was just strictly forbidden. It
01:51was against the law. Not just because they didn't want you to stay there, but the laws were written so
01:56that you could not stay there. In 1936, a Harlem mailman named Victor H. Green compiled the first edition of
02:04The Negro Traveler's Green Book. It told black travelers which hotels would welcome them,
02:11which restaurants would offer them service, and even which gas stations they could buy fuel.
02:18Welcome to New York City!
02:23This is Zim, social media master and travel extraordinaire.
02:27A few years ago, she spent months in India, but there were no travelers there who looked like her.
02:34No one with the same hair, the same background, or the same experiences.
02:39So she founded Travel Noir, a digital platform where travelers of the African diaspora can share
02:45their experiences. You can find somebody skydiving in Dubai, hanging out in the ruins in Angkor Wat.
02:52It's about to get lit. You can find people at the Taj Mahal in India.
03:00In Marrakech, Morocco, chilling on the beach.
03:05In Bahia, Brazil, dancing with some of the capoeira dancers.
03:15All of that you can find on the Gram.
03:17Just a couple of years ago, what used to take Zim hours to find photos of African Americans
03:25traveling on Instagram, now takes her an instant.
03:33Someone is in Paris, and we know, not just by seeing a picture when they get back,
03:37we see a Snapchat of them while they're there. Someone's in Dubai, and like,
03:41we have instant video and footage, and it's interesting. You want to see it, it looks fun,
03:46so why wouldn't you want to experience it?
03:50Kende Wiley is an internationally renowned painter, and if you haven't yet seen his art,
03:55you have to. He's a big deal, and his work has taken him across the globe.
03:59I began travel at the age of 12. I went to Russia, and it changed my life.
04:05It was the first time coming out of South Central Los Angeles that I had seen a world where there were
04:10young kids, 12 years old, just like me in the forest, just outside of St. Petersburg,
04:14making paintings. It changed my everything. It allowed me to think outside of South Central
04:19Los Angeles. It allowed me to think outside of a black community and universalized my sense of self.
04:24That interaction, that study of the language, all of that hardwired me for a sense of curiosity.
04:30As I travel, I start to see deeper and more influence and nuanced ways of looking at
04:44America. In order to see yourself, you have to get back. You have to step away. And by coming home
04:50from other places, I become that much better at talking about America. One thing that they don't
04:55tell you, though, is that most travel books aren't made for black and brown people.
04:59I still go to countries where they'll sit me down in a room and they'll show me a presentation of a
05:05tourist exploring the country. And the tourist, 99.9% of the time, is always white, is always male,
05:12blonde hair. And it's a little offensive. And if you're going to, if you want to cater to those
05:19audiences, you're going to have to sort of broaden that messaging.
05:22African Americans spend close to $50 billion on travel every single year. And despite a downward
05:30trend in overall American travel, black Americans are seeing an increase. Why is this happening?
05:37Well, since at least the 1960s, the income of black households has been on the rise,
05:43which means black Americans have slowly but steadily gained more money to spend.
05:47And let's not forget about education. In 1940, close to 25% of all Americans completed high
05:55school, but only 7% of African Americans finished. Today, the percentage of black Americans who finish
06:01high school and go on to higher education is almost on par with the national average.
06:07This is a demographic that has generally seen a rise in economic and academic opportunity,
06:12and that has created networks and connections all over the world through social media.
06:16They have access to flight deals, to a sharing economy. They have more access to the world.
06:22I'm able-bodied. I can travel. Travel is accessible to me. Let me go out and explore the world while I can,
06:31while I'm young.
06:32So you have generation after generation people who lived and died during the Jim Crow period.
06:36And look for that great-grandchildren to be able to get on an airplane and go somewhere and check into a hotel.
06:42They've got to be smiling at that. That's progress. That's progress.
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