Brooklyn's 'Soul' campaign spotlighting African-American culture sites is big draw for tourists

[Blue_Tires]

Brooklyn's got soul - and a new marketing campaign wants the world to know about it.

The borough's rich African-American culture will be at the center of advertisements, a printed guide and Web site called the "Soul of Brooklyn," aimed at bringing more tourists to Afro-centric historical sites, events, restaurants and businesses.

"We have this great culture of people from the African Diaspora," said Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art executive director Laurie Cumbo, who created the campaign. "We need to market this to bring tourist dollars to the borough."

Cumbo came up with the idea several years ago as she watched black-owned mom-and-pop shops close one after another in Fort Greene, pushed out by gentrification and a sagging economy.

She's hoping her strategy will get visitors to see the borough as a go-to spot for African-American history and culture on par with Harlem or New Orleans, bringing small businesses and cultural institutions here needed attention and cash.

It could also mean real money for the area, said Charlie Presley, founder of the African American Travel Conference, an Ohio-based association of African American volunteer tour coordinators.

"This is all about packaging," Presley said. "If you have one African-American site, it's tough to get the word out. Get 20 or 30 or 40 of them together, and then you have a destination."

About 15% of African-Americans travel on group tours, many of them heritage-based, and a busload of tourists typically drops thousands of dollars a day, he said.

"Brooklyn has a lot going on culturally," said Richard Beavers, owner of the Afro-centric House of Art gallery in Bedford-Stuyvesant. "But a lot of people don't realize (it) because it's not really publicized."

Cumbo also noted that The Daily News contributed to the intiative by donating 20 photographs to a gallery of Brooklyn celebrities - such as Lena Horne, Jay-Z and Spike Lee - being featured on the Soul of Brooklyn Web site, www.soulofbrooklyn.com.



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2010/06/15/2010-06-15_boros_soul_is_big_draw_for_tourists.html#ixzz0r2q9UUle