Beyond Flamenco: Barcelona’s West African and Afro-Spanish Diaspora
Barcelona’s Afro-diaspora story is smaller and less documented than Madrid’s or Paris’s, but El Raval’s West African and Senegalese community, and an emerging Afro-Catalan cultural conversation, are worth an honest look.
Following Beta Israel: Ethiopian Jewish Heritage in Israel
Beta Israel’s Ethiopian Jewish community carries over a thousand years of history and three dramatic airlift rescues â Operation Moses, Operation Joshua, and Operation Solomon. Here is their story, and why Israel’s current Level 3 advisory means BTN is treating this as heritage reading, not a booking guide.
Salt Spring Island, British Columbia: Where Black Pioneers Fled North for Freedom
In 1858, hundreds of Black Californians fled discrimination for a British colony that promised them land and rights. Many settled Salt Spring Island â and their descendants, and the BC Black History Awareness Society, keep that story alive today.
Boise, Idaho: Inside the Country’s Only Black History Museum Built From a 1921 Church
Idaho’s only Black history museum lives inside a 1921 church relocated to Julia Davis Park in Boise â the legacy of Rev. William Riley Hardy’s congregation and Cherie Buckner-Webb’s preservation crusade.
St Pauls Carnival: Bristol’s Caribbean Community Takes the Streets
Since 1968, St Pauls Carnival has been Bristol’s answer to the Windrush generation’s fight to be seen â a celebration of African-Caribbean culture in a city still reckoning with its slave-trade past. Here’s the real story, the Edward Colston statue’s afterlife at M Shed, and what to honestly expect if you’re planning a visit right now.
Corn Islands and Bluefields: Nicaragua’s Afro-Caribbean Coast
Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast is a different country from the Managua brochures â a Creole and Miskito world where Kriol English is spoken alongside Spanish, Bluefields throws a month-long Maypole festival every May, and Big and Little Corn Island guard some of the last quiet turquoise water in Central America.
Black Alaska: Buffalo Soldiers, Homesteaders, and a Hidden Frontier History
Long before Alaska was the 49th state, Black whalers, Buffalo Soldiers, and a trailblazing homesteader-lawyer were writing a frontier history most travelers never learn. Here’s where to find it, starting at the Anchorage Museum.
The Forgotten Afro-Iraqis of Basra: The Zanj Legacy Nobody Talks About
Between 869 and 883 AD, enslaved East Africans working the salt marshes near Basra rose up against the Abbasid Caliphate in one of the largest slave revolts in recorded history. More than a thousand years later, an estimated half-million to two million of their descendants still live in southern Iraq â largely unrecognized, and still fighting to be seen. This is their story, and why Iraq’s current Level 4 travel advisory means it isn’t a trip we can recommend right now.
St. Vincent’s Balliceaux: Ground Zero of the Garifuna Diaspora
Balliceaux, a small uninhabited island in the Grenadines, is where the British interned thousands of Garifuna after the Second Carib War of 1795-97 â the founding trauma behind today’s Garifuna diaspora in Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala. This is a guide to understanding that history and visiting St. Vincent with the reverence it deserves.
Nuquà and BahÃa Solano: Colombia’s Afro-Colombian Pacific Coast
ChocÃŗ is Colombia’s Blackest department â a Pacific coast reachable only by small plane, where humpback whales breach offshore July-October, waterfalls drop into the jungle, and Afro-Colombian Pacific culture runs deeper than almost anywhere else in the country.
