When Travel Becomes Testimony: From Anne Frank to Dr. King.
On the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., I’m reminded that his life’s work was shaped not only by his words, but by his movement. Dr. King traveled relentlessly—crossing cities, states, and borders—to bear witness, to teach, and to challenge people to see the world as it was, not as they wished it to be. His travel was purposeful. Educational. Grounded in lived experience.
Long before EbonyTravelers had a name, I was a new traveler trying to understand why certain places pulled at me more than others. One of the earliest—and most formative—was visiting the Anne Frank House.
Walking through that narrow home in Amsterdam, into the Secret Annex, I felt something I didn’t yet have language for. The silence was heavy. The walls felt close. History was no longer abstract—it was intimate. Unavoidable. This was not a place you simply visited; it was a place that stayed with you.
As a person of color, that experience mattered deeply. Not because Anne Frank’s story mirrored my own, but because the patterns were familiar. Who is deemed worthy of safety? Who is forced into invisibility? How is fear legislated? How does silence become dangerous? Standing there, I understood that oppression is not confined to one people or one era. It moves. It adapts. And when ignored, it repeats.
That realization connects directly to Dr. King’s legacy—and to the work EbonyTravelers has committed to over the past five years.
Dr. King traveled to expose the truth. To name injustice. To educate through proximity. He understood that people change not just through theory, but through exposure—through seeing, hearing, and feeling reality up close. In many ways, EbonyTravelers was born from that same understanding: that travel can be a powerful teacher, especially when it is honest.
Over the years, this platform has chronicled what it truly means to move through the world as a person of color. EbonyTravelers posts like Traveling the U.S. With the History of Sundown Towns were written to confront uncomfortable realities that still shape domestic travel today. That piece was not about fear—it was about awareness. About equipping travelers with context so they could move with discernment rather than denial.
Essays such as Travel Is Important—But So Is Wholeness and In 2026, Don’t Just Travel—Come Home Whole marked a shift toward deeper reflection, acknowledging that traveling without healing, without rest, without self-awareness can leave us fragmented. These stories challenged the idea that movement alone is enough, reminding us that wholeness must travel with us.
More recently, reflections on political tension, global instability, and preparedness have continued this educational thread—affirming that traveling as a person of color today requires not just curiosity, but clarity. Context. Community wisdom.
Visiting historical places like the Anne Frank House shaped how I would eventually approach travel writing. I learned early that I could not—and should not—separate beauty from truth. That I did not want to see the world only as it presents itself, but as it remembers itself. That instinct has guided EbonyTravelers from the beginning.
Now in its fifth year, EbonyTravelers stands as both a record and a resource. A living archive of what it means to travel informed, faithful, and awake in a world that too often asks us to forget history in favor of convenience.
In a time when rhetoric grows sharper, and history feels closer than it should, places like the Anne Frank House and voices like Dr. King’s remind us why remembrance matters, why education matters. Why travel—when done with intention—can be an act of resistance, empathy, and hope.
As a new traveler, I didn’t know that standing in that Amsterdam house would one day shape my writing, my teaching, and my purpose. I only knew that I needed to see history where it lived.
I still do.
Because travel, at its best, does more than take us somewhere new—it teaches us how to move through the world with truth, courage, and humanity. And that has always been the heart of EbonyTravelers.
