Millennium Hot Spots - Brief Article

Ebony, May, 2000 by Joy Bennett Kinnon

Summertime Family Fun Makes The Livin' Easy

IT's time for summertime fun. School is out and families are heading for millennium hot spots with kids in tow. Adults, singles and professionals are hitting the road for business, church and social conventions, and the swinging younger set is searching out festival fun as cities around the country plan major summer music and cultural festivals.

It's a new day, a new way and a new century, and African-American travelers are hitting the road in record numbers, confirming travel industry reports that travel by minority groups is the key to the future growth of the travel industry. What a difference a century makes! Travel in the early days of the last century was a haphazard affair and often meant heading South with fear and trepidation. Today, African-American travelers strike out for all points on the compass and the only major anxiety is how to pay for it all.

Early planners can reduce that anxiety. Special vacation discount packages to destinations in and outside of the U.S. are available through American Airlines and Southwest Airlines. Both airlines offer special discount vacation packages, combining air travel and hotel accommodations in one package. Check vacation specials through car rental agencies like Alamo and through credit unions and credit card companies that offer special vacation packages.

Don't forget to check Internet web sites that allow the enterprising traveler to hunt for the best bargains. Often thought of as a winter-time vacation destination, the Caribbean also offers superb summer getaways, at greatly discounted prices. Off-season summer rates drop anywhere from 15 to 50 percent, as compared to winter season costs, and packages boast added amenities for the lesser price. The U.S. Virgin Islands offers a variety of savings at all three islands, St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas, through early bookings, free night offers, in-season specials and advance purchases. Some packages to St. Croix are under $1,000 and feature round-trip air transportation on American Airlines and a choice of accommodations from five hotels.

But you don't have to island hop to find sun and culture. Washington, D.C., is filled with museums and cultural attractions: the African American Civil War Memorial, the Frederick Douglass National Historic site, the Benjamin Banneker Memorial Circle and Fountain, the Black Fashion Museum and Great Blacks in Wax Museum, and the Speak to My Heart: Communities of Faith and Contemporary African American Life exhibit that runs through Dec. 31 at the national mall site of the Anacostia Museum.

And when you've left D.C., "meet me in Missouri," as the song goes, to give your family a variety of enjoyable and informative, heritage-packed weekend getaways. A visitor to St. Louis shouldn't miss Treemonisha, the first fully staged professional production in 25 years of Scott Joplin's only surviving opera. It opens the Opera Theatre of St. Louis' 25th season and is scheduled to run May 20-June 24.

Also don't miss the Arch, the Old Courthouse where the Dred Scott case was tried, the Black World History Wax Museum, the Scott Joplin House or the St. Louis Walk of Fame commemorating the city's most famous residents like Josephine Baker and Chuck Berry. One of the largest Juneteenth festivals in the country is held in St. Louis. The 10-day Juneteenth Heritage and Jazz Festival is scheduled for June 9-19 this year.

And while the down-home Southern hospitality has you in its spell, don't overlook the charms of Arkansas. There is something for every interest, from Hot Springs National Park, the Central High Museum and Visitor Center civil rights landmark to the Museum of Black Arkansans.

From Little Rock, Ark., continue through the Big Easy, Cajun Country and Gulf Coast beaches and head straight to the Sunshine State.

Rich in history, culture and charm, not to mention beautiful beaches, from Pensacola to Key West, Florida tempts travelers with its relaxing activities and interesting excursions. Northern Florida is filled with hidden treasures. One such treasurer is Amelia Island's American Beach, just one of many landmark sites listed along Florida's Black Heritage Trail. Established in the 1930s by A.L. Lewis, founder of the Afro-American Insurance Company, it has remained a predominately Black, ocean-front resort community.

Jacksonville, Fla., is the birthplace of lawyer, civil rights leader and poet James Weldon Johnson, and the city where he and his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, composed "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" 100 years ago. Also in Northern Florida near historic St. Augustine is Fort Mose, established in 1738 by runaway slaves. It became the first line of defense for Spanish settlements a few miles north of St. Augustine and is believed to be the first legally sanctioned, free Black town in what is now the United States. For its brilliant defense efforts, the militia of former slaves is called "Florida's first national guard."