How do you feel about Black history?

Happy Black History!

Did you know that out of the $109.4B a year we, Black people, spend on tourism only 3% of that is spend on museums and sites of history? (travel agent central)

And for a group of people, the majority (76%) of whom, rely on oral history accounts to know about their lineage and ancestors -- doesn't it seem odd that we wouldn't engage in sites of our history more?

So why don't we go to sites of our history? Why don't we spend our money there? How do we really feel about our history as Black people living in America?

These questions are why we are starting with a "Let's Talk: Community Conversation" at @fiskuniversity this week as we launch @greenwoodseneca Your Legacy Tours in Nashville, TN this year.

I know what existed for me:

• Black history singled me out, rather than pulled me in (assimilation)
• It feels painful to really know how my parents, grandparents, great grandparents were treated by this country (and still are)
• The farther away we distanced ourselves from slavery, our enslavement, our survival and constant fight to 'catch up' from it - the less it seemed relevant, the less it seemed to hurt, the less we pretended it mattered
• Sites of our history (plantations, cemeteries, sharecropper land etc) weren't sharing the a story that included Blackness or brushed over our existence in those spaces - it seemed taboo to consider going back to a place we never wanted to be in the first place

I know what changed for me:

• What I know about my people stops and gets really confusing once you get past by great great grandmother - that's my mom's grandma
• Nipsey Hussle's song "Who Detached Us" reminds that we "used to be connected" - where did that connection start? - where was the origin in our solidarity to being Black?
• I know I am a decedent of survivors of enslavement which means, despite my ability to trace exactly who they all are, anywhere they were, I am too.

So today - I go where they were. I go to connect with the lives they had on that land and in those spaces. I spend my dollars at museums, I travel to forgotten places and exchange ziplining for plantation tours. I (and my husband Taurean Gordon who has grown in his interest in these experiences - that took some time!) are typically the only Black people in these spaces. YET, in discussions with friends and family I know there is an interest and desire to connect more fully and loving with our ancestors who survived enslavement.

So where is the disconnect?

• Is is the space?
• Is the available tours?
• Is it the fear of pain and trauma?
• Is it a lack of interest and desire to just 'move on'?
• What would make you want to revisit your history and reclaim it as your own?

I would love if you shared our thoughts in the comments. Or come in person to discuss this very thing. Just a few days left to register for our first event in Nashville, TN!!

Tell a friend to tell a friend.

Link to register here!