Almost a year later, Black & Abroad is still getting dividends from its provocative Go Back to Africa marketing campaign, designed to combat racism, diversify travel advertising, and help black Americans envision themselves on the continent. The boutique Atlanta-based company sells international trips and is a staple of the black travel movement.
The campaign was unexpectedly popular in Ghana, according to Black & Abroad co-founders Kent Johnson and Eric Martin, who said the majority of their upcoming trips are now on the continent. They are also in the early stages of considering more personalized ancestry trips to Africa based on DNA tests. Most recently, Johnson and Martin took a group of 20 to Ghana at the end of 2019, also known as Ghana’s Year of Return, a government initiative targeting the diaspora. The country has a decades-long history of encouraging black American visitation.
“They had people welcoming us home at the airport,” said Martin of the recent Ghana trip. “It was like coming home to a long-lost family that you never met before … Our next trips to Ghana are forever going to be upstaged by December 2019.”
