LOOKING BACK AT MY 'BLACK ATLAS' TRAVELS

I once did travel videos for American Airlines

Before I started making documentaries I got an unexpected gig doing travel videos for American Airlines under the banner ‘Black Atlas.’ American set up a web site aimed at black adult travelers and I was assigned to travel around the U.S. and the world looking at a variety of cities through the lens of black culture. My co-pilot on these trips was Diane Paragas, who would co-direct ‘Brooklyn Boheme’ with me and later make her indie film debut with the criticallly acclaimed ‘Yellow Rose.’

I shot these pieces for about a year and a half, and it was a whirlwind of long distance preparation, long shooting days, and then back to NYC to prep the next trip. Yes, it was fun. It was also exhausting. My body often hadn’t recovered from the previous trip before I was on a plane again. American set up a Black Atlas site, hoping to drive people to it (and to flights on their planes.) What they hadn’t really figured on was that people wanted to enjoy the videos on YouTube and social media, not have to go to a separate site to view them.

As a result much of my Black Atlas work was only seen by a relatively few people at the time these were shot. Through the wonders of Facebook, a few of my videos popped up on my feed this week. I thought it would be fun to share them here. Some of the newer locations in these videos are probably gone, but the historic sites and the conversation with locals are still very relevant. The travel I undertook really broaded my understanding of the world and the complexity of the African diaspora. Black Americans tend to see the world through out experience (a failing shared by all Americans), while the experince of black folks globally is richer and more multi-faceted than we know.

These travel videos are from Bahia, Rome, Bacelona, Paris, Los Angeles, Costa Rica, and Puerto Rico, and deal primarily with food, history and music. There are many more videos by me still on YouTube under the Black Atlas banner and by other hosts after I moved on. For me they are a record of a part of my life that I sometimes overlook, yet that still informs my worldview. Sample a few over the weekend and, maybe, book a flight.