Breonna Taylor

Breonna Taylor art by Robin Hilkey

Four Ways Black Travelers Can Honor Breonna Taylor

Thomas Dorsey, Founder of Soul Of America

Coordinate a Travel Group to Your Local Polling Place

If nothing else, we are organizers. The skills you use to sort flights by cost, duration and stopovers; sync up five friends’ vacation schedules and run point on the family reunion?

Those skills can help you round up like-minded neighbors for a planned group trip to your polling place. Walk, bike or caravan. It doesn’t matter. Get people to travel together to vote before or by November 3rd, 2020. Make calls to check that the family mailed their mail-in ballots. If they don’t trust the post office, find out where they can drop off that ballot in person. And take them there.

Elect politicians committed to REAL police reform (BodyCams turned-off should count against officers in trials, eliminate no-knock warrants, eliminate chokeholds, reduce profiling by making PDs report racial profiles of everyone stopped to the FBI, cut federal funding to PDs that continue profiling, and jail time for shooting unarmed people of color.)

Donate your Black Travel Dollars in Breonna Taylor’s Name

Before COVID-19, Black people were spending $60 billion a year on travel, according to a 2018 study by Mandela Research. Many of us and our black travel dollars are now homebound. Or, we’re shelling out less by turning that Paris trip into a road trip.

Either way, many of us have extra coin to donate in Breonna’s name to organizations that are changing the kinds of laws that got her killed. Twenty-five dollars from that canceled girl’s trip to Las Vegas can go a long way in the fight for social justice. Where to donate? Start with How to Help Bring Justice for Breonna Taylor.

Take Breonna Taylor With You When You Travel

Post a pic of yourself on social media while on vacation or in your home city holding up a sign: Breonna Taylor Matters in Jamaica or in Cairo or in Cleveland. Accompany them with hashtags:

#BreonnaTaylorMattersInJamaica
#BreonnaTaylorMattersinCairo
#BreonnaTaylorMattersinCleveland

Susette in Japan

Susette in Japan

It doesn’t have to be a big sign. Use paper from the pad in your hotel room or on the back of a to-go menu. Post an up-close, easy-to-read photo of the paper next to a pic of you holding it in front of the Pyramids or the local library.

Show Up Virtually to the Cultural Black Travel Events that Breonna Can’t Attend

Keep black culture strong. Arts and cultural organizations in general have suffered an average of $26,000 in lost revenues since the pandemic hit, according to Americans for the Arts. It’s safe to say that our cultural organizations are faring worse during COVID-19.

A study by Mandela Research found that black travelers who want cultural experiences drop more money on vacations than any other category of black travelers.

The dollars black people aren’t spending because of Covid-19 is lost revenue to organizations that you can support online – either by contributing money, showing up virtually or both. You can find online offerings like those by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Brooklyn Museum.

Check out Soul Of America’s 10 October Virtual Black Travel Events and National Calendar of Events. Visit the websites of black museums, art organizations, and theater groups to see if they have virtual programming.

Whether we walk to a nearby park, road trip to a neighboring state or fly to a different hemisphere, we are blessed to be able to move about the world. It’s a blessing Breonna Taylor and the hundreds of black victims of police violence can no longer claim.

As black travelers, we can make a difference. Get your traveler friends on board. And Act. Now.

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