International Black History and Culture Sites to Visit in 2024

by Brian Major
Last updated: 8:05 AM ET, Wed February 21, 2024

Black History is American history, but it’s also global history. The complex narrative that forms the history of African people and their global descendants is an epic tale of struggle and adversity mingled with achievement and accomplishment.

The saga remains ongoing, with Black cultural sites reflecting both the wrenching struggle for equality and the inspiring examples of excellence.

Today, travelers can experience the full flower of the Black experience in an array of international destinations and settings. Culture-driven travelers can craft journeys that uncover U.S. jazz pioneers’ ground-breaking musical stylings or opt for sun-drenched Caribbean forays that double as exploration into colonial-era struggles for freedom.

Black culture is also found in the fervent Carnival celebrations found in Salvador, Brazil, and in the surviving sites of historic 19th-century free Black communities across the northern U.S.

Unquestionably, there are unending opportunities for vacationers to explore the roots of Black culture in 2024 and 2025. Here are a few examples:

Bessie Smith Cultural Center, Chattanooga, Tennessee

The Center pays tribute to Smith, the “Empress of the Blues,” whose powerful delivery, harmonic intensity and impeccable timing made her the preeminent female Blues performer of the Jazz Age and particularly the 1930s.

Using interactive kiosks, research and entertainment modules and exhibits, plus a children’s education corner, the Center works to preserve and celebrate African American culture and history, chronicling enslaved Africans’ experience in America, from their arrival to the Civil Rights era and beyond, while also focusing on local Black life and culture.

One exhibit features art and artifacts showcasing Chattanooga's 9th Street, the 20th-century center of Black business in Chattanooga, filled with the barbershops, clubs, churches, and homes.

Another new exhibit, “Chattanooga’s Black Soundtrack” highlights local artists including Usher Kane Brown and The Impressions. Naturally, the Center also offers an array of records, artifacts, and stories describing the incredible life and music of Bessie Smith.

Nearby Black-owned Chattanooga businesses and restaurants offer authentic cuisine and craft products. Bad Wraps Incarcerated, a downtown food stand at 426 E. MLK Blvd., offers tasty steak wraps and other specialties. Another downtown eatery, Blue Orleans at 1463 Market St., has served Creole-inspired fare for 17 years.

Tula Monument, Curacao

Located amid quiet beaches on Curacao’s south coast is a monument where one of the Caribbean’s most famous slave rebellion leaders was executed.

Today, the area features serene beachfronts with long empty stretches and resort facilities including restaurants and watersports operators. The tranquility belies colonial-era events here, as the site is also where Tula, an enslaved African, launched the Curacao Slave Revolt on Aug. 17, 1795.

The rebellion began at the Knip Plantation in Bandabou, where Tula, leading 40 to 50 enslaved people, told his master they would no longer submit to bondage.

By that evening, the group had freed thousands of other slaves. They encamped on the beachfront at present-day Porto Mari and later defeated a Dutch attack.

Tula’s forces increased as the group freed more enslaved people at other plantations. Bloody battles ensued, and the revolt lasted more than a month.

The colonial military ultimately defeated the rebels, and Tula was captured and executed on October 3, 1795. His fellow revolt leaders were killed and other enslaved people were killed in a retaliatory massacre.

Seeking to avert another uprising following the rebellion’s suppression, Curacao’s government granted some rights to enslaved people. Slavery was ultimately abolished in Curacao in 1863.

Salvador, Brazil

Salvador, the capital of the Brazilian state of Bahia, features the largest population and African descendants within the country as well as outside of Africa. The city served as Brazil's capital from 1549 to 1763.

Salvador’s African influences are evident in the city’s everyday life along with its cuisine, dance, festivals, music and spiritual practices. These elements are on full display during Carnival season in February, which extends from the Friday before Ash Wednesday to noon seven days later.

The annual week-long celebration spans seven musical circuits with tractor-trailer trucks equipped with huge sound systems led by “blocos” (cultural street bands) that parade through the streets of 12 neighborhoods daily (and nightly).

Blocos are divided into “afro,” “afoxé,” “samba-reggae” and other categories, with each representing a different facet of Bahian culture and history. The blocos’ music is dominated by Bahia’s “Axé” Afro-Caribbean rhythms, incorporating reggae, calypso and Brazilian beats.

The public partying is complemented by an array of cultural events at clubs, hotels and musical venues across the city, and at temples observing Candomblé, the Black indigenous faith shared by a majority of Salvador residents.

Carnival features an array of musical acts, vibrant parades, and dedicated spaces for dance. The festival’s revelry features an intensity and unity seldom seen beyond the country.

Carnival groups traditionally wear thematic costumes. Travelers can also purchase “abadás,” special shirts that provide access to exclusive parade areas and “camarotes,” private viewing areas featuring special amenities.

Weeksville, Brooklyn

Located in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, Weeksville is a historic African American neighborhood founded by formerly enslaved Black people during the 19th century.

Led by James Weeks, African American investors purchased neighborhood properties in 1838 with a plan to create “an intentional landowning community,” according to the Weeksville Heritage Center.

The community, located within the boundaries of present-day Fulton Street, East New York Avenue, Ralph Avenue and Troy Avenue, thrived into the late 19^th century with 500 residents, schools, churches, a newspaper, social organizations and an orphan’s asylum.

During its most prosperous days, Weeksville featured two-story homes located along a former Native American trail and, later a key colonial road. Three of these Hunterfly Road houses have been have been continuously inhabited and maintained as examples of homes of free people of color in the urban north.

In subsequent years, the Weeksville community was largely absorbed into the Crown Heights neighborhood and largely forgotten. In 1968, a grassroots preservation preserved the Hunterfly Road Houses and historic Weeksville.

Travelers to the area will find an extensive program of summer concerts and cultural events. The area is also home to traditional soul food restaurants.

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