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B M & T ••• July/August 2026 ••• www.blackmeetingsandtourism.com 28 B efore the first shackle was forged. Before the first vessel of the Atlantic crossing crest ed the horizon. Before any European cartographer dared redraw the known world — African people were already moving across it. This is where the true story of Black travel in America begins. Not at the port of arrival. Not in the hold of a ship bearing chains. But at the edge of an ocean that African navigators had already stud ied, charted, and crossed in vessels of their own making — driven by the science of current and wind that only a seafar ing civilization accumulates across generations of mastery. As Dr. Yosef benJochannan argued across decades of ancient Egypt scholarship and travel as a decolonization tool, and as Dr. John Henrik Clarke taught with fierce clarity on Black mobility as a vital instrument of survival, political liber ation and African consciousness: the story of African peoples did not begin in bondage. It was interrupted by it. THE CROSSING AND WHAT IT COULD NOT DESTROY Of the approximately twelve million Africans transported more than 5,000 miles from their homelands to the Americas during the transAtlantic enslavement trade — one of the largest forced human trafficking operations in history — approximately 388,000 were brought into what is now the United States. These kidnapped sons and daughters of Africa crossed the ocean as cargo, arriving at Charleston and New Orleans and into Virginia, Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, and Louisiana. Their uncompensated labor built the foundation of a nation that would one day proclaim its liberty. THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD: AMERICA'S FIRST FREEDOM TRAVEL NETWORK During the first two hundred years of the importation of Africans, travel for the enslaved was totally nonvol untary — we went where we were sent or taken, with out family, with only the clothes on our backs. During the early 1800s, our extraordinarily brave ancestors risked their lives on treacherous journeys to freedom along the Underground Railroad, walking many hun dreds of miles to Free States — Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey — and across the border into Canada. William Still's Philadelphia Vigilance Committee documented hundreds of freedom seekers; those records are pre served at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Having led over 70 enslaved people to freedom, Harriet Tubman is a recognized historic heroine who could easily be considered the nation's first Black travel specialist. Born in Dorchester County, Maryland, she escaped north in 1849 and returned south no fewer than thirteen times, navigating by stars through forests and frozen rivers. The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park honors the precise landscape where this genius operated. It is not metaphor. It is indeed benevolent cartography at its finest. In the mid1950s — ninetyfive years after Harriet Tubman's last rescue trip — Henderson Travel Service, the first fully accredited Black travel agency in America, opened its doors in Atlanta, Georgia, and today operates in Washington, D.C., specializing in travel to Africa. In 2002, Travel Professionals of Color (TPOC), founded by Charlotte Haymore and Betty Jones, became the premier travel indus try association devoted to the needs of minority travel spe cialists. REUNION, CONVENING, AND THE POWER OF COLLECTIVE MOVEMENT PostCivil War, African American travel was highly focused on reuniting. Massive numbers of formerly enslaved sought to find loved ones they had been separat ed from — giving rise to one of the most enduring traditions in African American travel: the Black Family Reunion. According to Dr. Ione Vargas of the National Family Reunion Institute, these gatherings established scholar ships for younger generations and created joint business opportunities. An estimated 90% of all American family reunions are held by African Americans — making this a multibilliondollar component of the travel industry. While enslaved were prohibited from gathering outside religious contexts controlled by savagely violent captors — the hunger to convene was suppressed, but never extin guished. By 1840, African Americans in free states were BA 250 Special Edition WE HAVE ALWAYS MOVED: THE UNTOLD ODYSSEY OF BLACK TRAVEL IN AMERICA African American Travel PATTERNS & TRENDS Through the Years BY Toni Walker BM&T Senior Staff Writer Black America 250 Resource Coordinator