2025 Black Soul World Tour

“your Black hands have left on the walls of civilization their prints of love, of beauty, and of light… “ - Jean-Fernand Brierre

This year my year has been acutely defined by travel. Yet, as I traverse the globe, I am acutely aware of the privilege this represents. My passport allows a freedom of movement denied to so many. I find myself constantly thinking about the migrations that are not permitted, the way migrants are villainized, the journeys that are born not of leisure but of desperation. I often wonder what my year, and my life, would look like with a different "set of papers."

I also, like many, also carry the weight of global suffering. How can one think of a “world tour” amid multiple genocides, with people in Gaza starving, extreme racial discrimination and suffering by Dominicans of Haitian descent, and civil war devastating the lives of darker-skinned people in Sudan? The only way I've learned to hold these tensions is by reading poetry, recognizing that a deep, visceral act of living is always embracing life despite its pain. I've learned that many poets see this as the very essence of our shared humanity.

My friends have been joking that my 2025 schedule is a "world tour," and I've been searching for a name that would fit for that idea. While I initially considered some sort of hip-hop reference, I kept going back to Haitian poet Jean-Fernand Brierre's poem, "Black Soul." I read it while in Barbados, and it has since become the lens through which I see my travels. The poem, a work from the Négritude movement, speaks of a traveler who encounters an unnamed figure, a Black boy, in countless places: on ships, trains, stairwells, and in dance clubs. This figure, this "Black soul," is everywhere life is happening.

I was reflecting on how relatable, and apropos, that journey felt to my recent travels. My "world tour" is a deliberate quest to encounter the dimensions of Blackness everywhere I go, especially since that was its purpose. My encounters have been simple yet profound: walking city streets, speaking with someone on a subway or bus, sharing meals in restaurants and bars, and meeting people on beaches, deserts, in libraries, monasteries, churches and museums. I've prayed and meditated with Black people from all over the world, representing diverse traditions and perspectives, yet all yearning for the same thing: liberation.

These connections have been deepened by the books I've intentionally read along the way; Toni Morrison's "Beloved," Imani Perry' "Black in Blues", Négritude poetry, historical and sociological texts about the diaspora, just lots of books. These readings have enriched every conversation and every moment of quiet reflection, helping me to better understand the lives and legacies I am encountering.

Ultimately, the purpose of this tour is to explore how people of African descent across the diaspora live out their spirituality and see what I can learn. It’s a search for ways that meditation and contemplation can be a path to healing for us all. Like Brierre’s traveler, I am seeking, and encountering, the "Black soul" in its many forms. My goal is to learn from these encounters and, in the process, continue a lifelong commitment to sharing what I've learned with others.

By the end of this year, I will have traveled to 34 cities across eight different countries. While this is a vast like a vast journey, I know there is so much more of the diaspora to learn from. My hope is to continue this education, not just through the people I meet and the books I read, but also through the simple, quotidian moments of life on the road.

This "Black Soul" world tour has been as much about discovering myself as it has been about understanding the world. My travels have shown me what I truly hold dear, who I am outside of Brooklyn, and what I value in both new and old friends. This journey has also been a mirror, forcing me to confront my own shortcomings, the motives behind my actions, and the ways I connect with others.

As I've sought out this "Black soul", I've begun to encounter my own. This process of self-discovery, fueled by a desire to connect with a larger community, is what I will carry with me long after the final flight lands.