Soul Of City Maps Genealogy

Thomas Dorsey with his legacy Soul Of City Maps and SoulOfAmerica website in background

About SoulOfAmerica

The About SoulOfAmerica story begins with Sleeping Car Porters and Victor Green’s eponymous Green Book. Their tools navigated Black Travel through the Jim Crow Era. We stand on their shoulders.

When our market research started in 1991, widely available travel guides only listed a handful of black heritage sites in New York City, Washington, and Atlanta. One popular guidebook series advised people not to visit the South Side of Chicago.

That pissed-off Thomas Dorsey. Like Victor H. Green, it challenged him to enlighten America about the breadth and depth of Black cultural & historic sites, restaurants, and shops, starting with Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland, Atlanta, Washington, Chicago, Baltimore, and New Orleans.

While working in the computer industry, Thomas named the venture “GoWare Travel” because, like many others, he thought CD-ROMs would join Print as dominant media. He placed “Soul Of” in front of each guide map name to differentiate our Black Travel content while cracking national distribution.

In June 1994, a national publishing distributor said his innovative full-color, fold-&-carry “Soul Of Los Angele Map” was the first of its kind sold by Barnes & Noble. Thomas also sold them in select black-owned bookstores. Since the first public Web browser would not debut until November 1994, the Web was not a distribution option for some time to follow.

SoulOfAmerica Features, Black Travel

Shortly afterward, we published Soul Of Oakland/San Francisco, Soul Of Atlanta, Soul Of Washington DC maps and a Soul Of Dallas mini-map for a Black MBA convention. While designing the Soul Of Chicago map, the rapid growth of the Web inspired many fans to beg for our guides online instead.

Thomas was hesitant because there was no successful way to monetize Web content at that time. Though we preceded TripAdvisor, there was NO Venture Capital for a startup Black Travel Website either. So Thomas kept his day job and contracted a small Web development staff. His brother Lenny helped with location research.

In March 1997, he took a leap of faith by converting the five Soul Of City Maps plus content for Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans, NYC, Philadelphia, and Houston to our website called “Goware-Travel.” As the 1st Black Travel Website, we gave thousands of black businesses, cultural institutions, and churches their first Web presence.

In 1998, Thomas renamed the company “Soul Of America Travel”, initiated “Soul Of America” DBA, and transferred all content to “SoulOfAmerica” website. Soon afterward, Sheila Umolu joined our staff with ideas and energy that helped us expand beyond 15 U.S. Cities, Black Colleges, and Black Cruises.

SoulOfAmerica on Black Enterprise, Black Travel

After being featured in Ebony, Upscale, Essence, Black Enterprise, and Emerge magazines, BET, NPR, Associated Press, USA Today, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and black newspapers, our fan mail and bookmarks multiplied.

Fans asked for more U.S. Cities, Beaches, Black Tour Operators, and events. Next, they requested Black Travel guides for the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Paris, and London. Delivering more of what visitors wanted led us to develop many versions of the website over time. Fans rewarded us with votes to win 4 Black Web Awards in the 2000s.

SoulOfAmerica 15th Year Publishing

In 2009, SoulOfAmerica celebrated 15 combined years publishing maps and a website

In the SoulOfAmerica journey to 150 travel guides with over 30,000 pages today, many excellent Black-themed websites have come & gone. Though we’ve had enough IT and advertiser challenges to make an onion cry, we survived. Through it all, we’re happy to be a resource for so many Destination Marketing Organizations, Black Travel Writers, and Black Travel Vloggers.

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