Gifted with an ideal childhood, Woni Spotts’ parents, Roger and Betty Spotts traveled internationally as musicians. A family friend, Nolan Davis—author of Six Black Horses, 1971—recruited fifteen-year-old Spotts in 1979 to host a four-year documentary project, Passing Through, 1989. Spotts, with a chaperone, and a crew of four filmed capital cities, cultural elements, museums, and nature. A vegan, Spotts protested against the harsh treatment of animals and prioritized vulnerable children in humanitarian endeavors.
Spotts attended an international university and returned to California as a doctoral-level scholar of anthropology with concentrations in philosophy and cultural religion. Unable to secure a position, Spotts founded an e-commerce company and engaged in philanthropic activities—micro loans, charities, and the preservation of endangered cultures. Inspired by the spirit of Matthew Henson and the determination of Barbara Hillary, the explorer longed to travel to the countries the documentary missed.
Spotts completed the 40-year odyssey in 2018 and by 2019, the historic event reached independent travel writers—Packs Light, Black Girl Nomads, Hey Dip Your Toes In, Small Crazy, Nicole Cooper—Medium, Wandering Redhead, Holly Dayz Travel & Lifestyle, The Awkward Traveller, Roni the Travel Guru, Travepreneur, Qweens Magazine, Crowned and Cultured, Wanderlust Calls, Black Girls Travel Too, and Girl Gone Travel.
A travel rival emerged with a press release to declare Spotts’ travels invalid due to the Soviet Union’s occupation of select countries. Editors faced demands to remove articles written about Spotts. While critics dissected Spotts’ journey, the travel rival failed to gain entry to Syria and stood in disputed territory, Golan Heights.
The travel rival spewed anti-American sentiments and on Instagram Live she displayed a plate of pangolin meat, an endangered species, an act condemned by animal protection organizations and African Geographic. She described discrimination in nearly every country, not a “Black American Experience” but an African or Caribbean experience, based on resistance to asylum seekers and illegal immigration. The day before the travel rival announced the "final country," Spotts’ Wikipedia page suffered vandalism and removal notices.
The interactions with the travel rival changed Spotts’ life forever. Spotts uncovered an insidious ethnocide and disdain from an unexpected source. Hidden in the blind spot of Black Americans, the realization turned the explorer into a fierce Freedmen/Foundational Black American advocate.
As the cyber-harassment campaign raged, Spotts battled supporters of the travel rival. Through a hail of insults—akata, jereer, and Oyinbo dudu—critics claimed Black Americans were uneducated and less traveled.
Spotts noted the over 100 Historic Black Colleges and Universities, 50,000 patents, c. 1,850-1,950 CE, and the moon landing calculations computed for NASA by Black American women.
As Spotts compared travel practices between countries, she noted that Americans live in one country divided into states, while distinct countries cover Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America. Nevertheless, Black Americans spend billions on luxury travel. Over centuries, Black Americans forged a stellar global image. Sports empires soared on the backs of rivalries, athletic activism, and barrier-breaking performances in over fifty sports, competitions, and Olympic events. While the crowds cheered hundreds of legends, notably, Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali, and Michael Jordan, the whole of Africa and the Americas won a fraction of Olympic gold medals and produced Usain Bolt and Pelé.
Generations of music genres, dance crazes, and entertainers—Josephine Baker, ballet dancers—Janet Collins, Raven Wilkinson…and opera singers—Marion Anderson, Leontyne Price, and icons—James Brown and Michael Jackson placed Black Americans center stage.
One of Thomas Edison's early motion pictures, The Pickaninny Dance from The Passing Show, c. 1,894 CE. Mills Brothers, Caravan. c. 1,938 CE. Will Maston Trio, Dancing Boogie, c. 1,938 CE. Bill Bailey, The Cabin In The Sky, Backslide or Moonwalk, c. 1,943 CE.
In the fallout from the travel rivalry, hordes of foreigners debated Spotts online over the origins of Black American music genres and African actors in Black American roles. To create or claim a genre, musicians compose rhythms, harmonies, and melodies with unique instrumentation. Artists publish, record, and perform live to inspire audiences. With no recordings, outsiders reframed Black American music genres to center Africans, Caribbeans, and Afro-Central/South Americans, which inspired the documentary Microphone Check, a film by Tariq Nasheed.
The evolution of rap, c. 1,920-1,970 CE—Beale Street Sheiks, Frankie “Halfpint” Jaxon, Fisk Jubilee Singers, The Mills Brothers, Caravan, Louis Thomas Jordan, You Gotta Have A Beat, Muhammad Ali, I Am The Greatest, Pigmeat Markham, “Here Comes The Judge,” “K.C. The Prince of Soul,” Disco King Mario” hosted large parties and park jams.
Black Americans created every American music genre and prominent international genres. Fela Kuti traveled to New York and left with Afrobeat, developed by James Brown and jazz. Afrobeat: Fela Kuti, James Brown and the invention of Afrobeat. -Alexander Stewart, p. 104.
“Jazz has formed the foundation for Ghana’s cultural and music scene. South African Amapiano, R&B...and it’s a genre that continues to grow with each new generation.” -Ken Agyapong Jr., an Afrochella founder.
“I started out playing Highlife and was the first to modernize it with Rock, Jazz, and R&B. It was Afrobeat, but my record company called it Afro-Soul.” -Orlando Owoh Julius.
Roscoe Gordon’s No More Doggin accented the off beats, “Roscoe Rhythm.” A Black American signed with a Kingston, Jamaica record company. Johnny Nash topped the charts with the first in a string of international reggae songs, Hold Me Tight.
The Edison Company developed the Projectoscope, which used carbon filament invented by Lewis Latimer. Berlinger, Columbia, and Thomas Edison recorded Black Americans, c. 1,890 CE. “Something Good-Negro Kiss” c. 1,898 CE, portrayed Black American life with tender romantic scenes. Born to a father enslaved by French Huguenots, Oscar Micheaux shined as one of the first Black American filmmakers. The Golden Age of Black Hollywood created superstars—Josephine Baker, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, Pearl Bailey, Dorothy Dandridge…
Black Americans fought for respectful representation in Hollywood, while foreigners mocked Black Americans, notably, Stepin Fetchit, a Jamaican. Today, Africans and Caribbeans from the UK, strategically occupy positions with casting companies to replace Black American actors with foreigners in historic films.
Outsiders derided Black Americans as politically powerless and unable to influence immigration policies. Historically, segregated militaries, Buffalo Soldiers, Tuskegee Airmen, Harlem Hellfighters… abolitionists, reconstruction-era politicians, and inspirational Civil Rights leaders created formidable political structures. In a courageous act of humanitarianism, aviator John C. Robinson, “Brown Condor,” “Father of the Tuskegee Airmen,” trained pilots and commanded Ethiopian forces against Italy. Frederick Douglass publicly criticized “Yellow Peril” propaganda and the Chinese Exclusion Act experienced by scapegoated immigrants. Black Americans championed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Over one billion in Africa and the Americas—in countries with UN seats—depend on advocacy and humanitarianism from 40 million Black Americans.
The conversation moved from nameless faceless internet avatars to the real world. Under the banner of unity, HBCUs compelled Black Americans to accept constructed and romanticized "African history.” Fragmented cultures, scattered philosophies, deadly religious rituals, orphaned children, oppressed women, child marriage, government corruption, a legacy of slavery, and genocide blurred under an idealized pan-African lens.
As foreigners replaced Black Americans in politics, media, and academic settings, narratives minimized slavery, denied racism, and refocused politics away from domestic affairs to immigration, hurricanes, and FGM. To decenter Black Americans, academics framed immigrants as the builders of America. Ellis Island arrivals stepped into established cities built by Black American laborers, craftsmen, and architects—Benjamin Banneker. Railroad companies used the enslaved to lay thousands of miles of tracks in the south and the east. Black Americans patented railroad lubricants and mechanical devices—notably the "Real McCoy." In the west, paid foreign laborers laid a 700-mile section of tracks. Country musicians learned techniques to pick guitars and to sing from Black American railroad workers. In positions of power, foreigners utilized scholarships and gate-kept promotions from Black Americans.
Academics reframed Black Americans as “Africans in America.” Black Americans, an ethnicity formed in the United States of America, emerged through a North American ethnogenesis, with an average of 24% European DNA and haplogroups from Africa, Europe, Oceania, and Siberia.
Museums dedicated to Black American History replaced exhibits with foreigners and soul food cuisine with Caribbean and African dishes described as “fusion.” While the country celebrated months for women, LGBTQ, Irish, Greeks, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Arabs, Jews, Caribbeans, Hispanics, Germans, Italians, Polish, and Native Americans, Austin Chenge, an African immigrant, ran a campaign on the promise to end Black History Month.
Freedmen Nation addressed the aggressive reframing, forced inclusion, and erasure by foreigners—Black History Month, Juneteenth, Black American Music Month, and Special Field Order No. 15 …
Spotts’, communications with UNESCO intangible cultural heritage were met with silence. UNESCO, a globalist organization eagerly credited Jamaica with reggae, a music genre created on every level by Black Americans. Cultural elements developed by Black Americans in isolation were viewed as a culture to be shared by the world, though censored and criminalized by America, Europe, and parts of Asia. Spotts documented the dates of music genres, dances, and soul food cookbooks—Hotel Keepers, Head Waiters, and Housekeepers Guide, Tunis Campbell, c. 1,848 CE.
Cuisine Culture: Soul Food and Louisiana Creole-Cajun Traditions
Language Culture: Gullah Geechee, Louisiana Creole, Afro-Seminole Creole, Tutnese, and BAVE/AAVE Dialects
Wild West Culture, Cowboys and Rodeo Traditions,
Military Culture: Segregated Troops and the Statue of Liberty Narrative
Abolition Culture: Advocacy and Civil Rights Movements
Entertainment Culture: Film, Music, Dance, Art, and Literature
Sports Culture: Legendary Athletes and Competitive Traditions
Innovation Culture: NASA’s Hidden Figures, Astronauts, and Inventors
Black Americans use the words "First Black" to celebrate milestones under oppression. “Black” refers to descendants freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States of America. Foreigners of African descent left mono-racial countries and chose to live in a country with a legacy of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, indigenous genocide, and Jim Crow. “First Black" encapsulates the power of Black Americans' legendary history.
To verify the travel, Spotts presented Travelers’ Century Club announcements, gold and silver status awards, and certificates for Crossing the International Date Line, First Class Galapagos Argonaut.’ Sailing to Antarctica, and a 1989 travel documentary, Passing Through, listed on IMDB. Later, Spotts gathered passport stamps, photos, film permits, receipts, airline tickets, tour company itineraries, and photographs of souvenirs. Spotts lectured international classes named Woni Spotts, First Black Woman to Visit Every Country and Continent, authored the book Letters from Everywhere. Over time, the explorer discovered Project Grace Foundation, a charitable organization, created a handmade bracelet to celebrate Spotts’ historic achievement.
Dozens of mainstream articles and scholarly journals wrote about Woni Spotts’ travel and the rivalry, while National Geographic ignored Spotts’ feat. Subsequent articles had to be revised to correctly acknowledge Spotts as the first Black woman to travel to every country and continent. On February 25, 2023, Woni Spotts was inducted into the Hidden History Museum in Los Angeles, California. On May 6, 2023, an international records book formally acknowledged Woni Spotts’ world travel. America Records Institute/AMRI and Decision No. WK/USA.INDIA/1000/2023/No.456 and officially declared the Worlds First Black Woman to Visit Every Country by World Records Union/World Kings on May 6, 2023, a member of World Creativity Science Academy/WCSA. https://worldkings.org/news/recognized-records/worldkings-top-500-constant-world-records-p-446-woni-spotts-usa-the-world-s-first-black-woman-to-visit-every-country.
As an explorer, cultural preservationist, and anthropologist, Spotts embraced the world. On the road, she mused that home countries steeped in ancient traditions awaited travelers from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South America, and the Caribbean, while Americans returned to a land of strangers.
Reminiscent of the Tortoise and the Hare fable, while the hare ran in circles, the tortoise crossed the finish line in silence.
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