‘Support our businesses.’ Black entrepreneurs in Miami concerned about NAACP travel advisory

When Alexis Brown founded SocialXchange, she wanted to create a safe space for Black people.

A place to laugh. A place to enjoy. A place to be free.

So when Brown found out about the NAACP’s Florida travel advisory, she was somewhat confused. Sure, she understood that Black people had to do something about Gov. Ron DeSantis’ policies, but she maintained “that’s not realistic” because people will still want to come to Miami. The messaging, in her mind, should’ve been more supportive of Black businesses, especially considering her event agency was specifically geared towards Black professionals.

“I wish they would’ve met with us,” Brown said, echoing a similar sentiment among many South Florida business owners who felt left out of the NAACP’s travel advisory. “I wish they would’ve asked us.”

When the NAACP issued a travel advisory on May 20 to warn Blacks about visiting Florida, it sent shockwaves across the country. It pointed out DeSantis’ policies — from his attempts to ban books about race and LGBTQ+ issues to slashing diversity, equity and inclusion budgets in higher education — as an “all-out attack on Black Americans.”

In South Florida’s Black business community, the advisory was met with a range of reactions. Some question its rationale, as many small businesses are still recovering after the pandemic. Others, however, see the potential loss of tourism dollars as DeSantis continues to target Black Floridians.

“Financially, yes I think it is going to hurt small businesses,” said Roe Michel, the founder of Vintage1804, a clothing shop located inside Little Haiti’s Caribbean Marketplace. “As a Floridian, I’m not for it but I understand it.”

There are more than 7,000 Black-owned businesses in Miami-Dade County, according to the Chamber of Commerce, far more than in the 1990s when the Boycott Miami movement was organized to encourage Black Americans to avoid Miami as a tourist destination. Led by prominent attorney H.T. Smith, the boycott aimed to get the county to help Black businesses as Miami’s tourism sector began booming. Its achievements included more than 100 scholarships for Black Miamians interested in the tourism industry and construction of the Royal Palm Crowne Plaza hotel, the first Black-owned luxury hotel in America.

Chamber President Eric Knowles previously told the Miami Herald that, while “what’s happening in Tallahassee goes against everything we are as Black people,” he didn’t completely agree with the advisory due to many Black businesses still being in recovery mode.

“Come and support Black businesses because the Black community is being attacked,” Knowles said at the time, quoting Wells Fargo figure that COVID-19 caused the loss of more than 40% of Black-owned businesses.

The travel advisory didn’t explicitly put forth a plan for Black businesses, but NAACP’s Miami-Dade chapter President Daniella Pierre stressed that the organization wasn’t telling travelers to stop patronizing them. Pierre, in fact, welcomed the criticism, saying she wanted Black entrepreneurs to help “craft the messaging so that we continue to position our local, Black-owned businesses to prosper.”

“If it’s more of a marketing or messaging issue,” Pierre said, “share it with us so we can strengthen what we’re actually trying to do which is to energize the vote and be able to have a Florida for everyone.”

Still, the timing of the travel advisory could not have been worse for Dunn Josephine Hotel owner Kristin Kitchen. She recently launched “Black Beauty as an Act of Resistance,” a pop-up exhibition celebrating the work of Black women at an Overtown beauty school, something Kitchen said cost her “thousands of dollars.” Her 19-room boutique hotel in Overtown had been sold out in recent weeks leading up to the travel advisory yet Kitchen believes the travel advisory rings hollow without a strategy that supports Black businesses like her own.

“Provide guidelines and suggestions,” she said. “They could also give us amazing, measurable outcomes. They should have asked last summer what our sales were. We can create outcomes with better understanding and provide a blueprint for how to go from there. When you put out blanket statements, it’s risky.”

Kitchen, whose hotel pays homage to the rich Black history of Overtown and beyond, said the NAACP missed a huge learning opportunity.

“After seeing that we were relatively slow in the summer last year, we knew we had to put out a heck of a campaign,” she said. “Now that we get this advisory, people are saying I don’t know if I want to come to Florida. The advisory should’ve been, ‘Go learn Black history in Florida.’”

Brown agrees. “If you’re going to go [to Florida], go to Black-owned spaces, go to Black-owned hotels, go to Black restaurants,” she said. She estimates that tourists make up more than a quarter of the people who attend her events specifically geared towards Black, young professionals. Brown doesn’t think SocialXchange will be affected yet wonders what the next steps will be. “What is an advisory going to do when he has another 3 years in office?”

Restaurant owners share the same worries. Shirlene Ingraham, the owner of Overtown’s Jackson Soul Food I and its sister location Jackson Soul Food II in Opa-locka, can’t help but be concerned about how the travel advisory will affect tourism.

“I wish it was another solution,” said Ingraham, lamenting about how the prices of ingredients “have been sky high.” “I know everything is politics, and I don’t think they really are thinking about the small businesses that really need those dollars to stay afloat.”

Amaris Jones, the founder of South Beach’s Chick’N Jones, said it’s too early to tell whether or not her business will be affected. What Jones plans to do in the interim is quite simple: focus on the locals.

“It would be great for organizations like NAACP to really hone in on the Black-owned businesses and get the locals that are here to support our businesses,” Jones said.

That support of local businesses is one of the key tenets of the Orange Blossom Classic. The game, which pits Florida A&M against Jackson State for a third consecutive year Sept. 3, has become a Miami Gardens staple since its return in 2021, showcasing the beauty of not only Florida’s largest majority Black city but also the culture of historically Black colleges and universities. Orange Blossom Classic Committee executive director Kendra Bullock was initially worried that the game will be at odds with the NAACP’s advisory.

“When they come in, they are spending their dollars in Black communities,” said Bullock, who runs the nonprofit that oversees the game and host of associated activities. She said the classic’s economic impact in South Florida – more than $30 million to Miami-Dade and Broward counties, 9,000 jobs and a $2 million in scholarships – as evidence of something that the NAACP should “want you to support.”

“We don’t want that to stop,” Bullock concluded.