Ebony Walden grew up in a family of limited means. The goal was to get by, and no one was planning summers in Europe or spring breaks on tropical islands, but it didn’t stop her from dreaming.
“One of my life goals was to visit all seven continents!” she explains.
And since 2010, she’s been to five of them, visiting 50 countries and 50 states. Her global travels were possible thanks, in part, to generous friends.
“I sent an e-mail to say, ‘Hey, I am thinking about a round-the-world trip. Send me your resources: friends of friends, organizations I should know about, places I can volunteer. Help me!’
She saved money from her job with the city of Charlottesville and found creative ways to generate nearly $30,000.
“I sold everything I owned, did a couple of fundraisers and I asked 150 people to give me $150,” Walden recalls.
Then it was off to see the world.
“I went to 17 countries, across five continents. I backpacked. I volunteered. I wrote poetry. I blogged and had a newsletter.”
Her book about that trip was released this summer. It’s called Where I’m From: A Poetic Journey Across Five Continents and it was the foundation for Walden’s award-winning documentary series.
A promotional video shows a series of colorful pictures as Walden invites viewers to "join me as I travel the globe and explore the beauty, culture, creativity and cuisine of the African diaspora in my new web series: Black Beyond Borders!"
She shot the series on her iPhone, and it’s available on her YouTube page – EbonyAroundTheWorld. She was deeply moved by visits to countries on Africa’s west coast, places that served as a door of no return for people kidnapped and sold into slavery. The history Walden discovered was heavy, but it was also a source of pride in her ancestors, who survived the middle passage, brutal lives on plantations, the KKK and modern-day discrimination.
“There’s a proverb," she says: "They tried to bury us and didn’t know we were seeds, and that’s what I felt at the Door of No Return. They tried to bury us with hundreds of years of oppression, but what happens when you bury seeds? They grow.”
And she marveled at cultures that sprouted when Africans met people from Europe and the Americas.
“Wherever we landed, we created something beautiful, and I’m tired of this deficit narrative, tired of all of the stereotypes about what it means to be Black, and I want to highlight the beauty that I have seen across the globe. You don’t get gumbo, you don’t get reggae without enslaved Africans being there.”
After publishing two books of poetry and producing two seasons of the travel series, she’s working on a documentary and hopes to craft a mini-series – her answer to Emily in Paris. It’ll be called Ebony in Dakar.
“The premise is a DEI consultant from the U.S. moves to the continent and has to navigate love, loss the vicissitudes.”
Traveling solo, she is careful – doesn’t walk alone at night, doesn’t wear valuable jewelry, and she concedes the world can be a dangerous place, but her work tells a different story -- most people are generous and kind.
