Your Black Summer Vacation: The Midwest

If you’re visiting Detroit, the Motown Museum is a must. Step inside the original headquarters and recording studio to see the place Berry Gordy made hits happen. Visitors can get a closer look at recording equipment, costumes, photos and other memorabilia. You can even tour the apartment Gordy and his family lived in during the company’s early days.

Located in Chicago’s historic Washington Park neighborhood, The DuSable Museum has been educating people about Black history and culture since 1961. The museum is named for Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable, the Haitian-born founder of Chicago, and boasts over 15,000 pieces of artwork and memorabilia. Current exhibits include “Fighting Racism in the Trenches: A Colored Woman in World War I” and “Troubled Waters: Chicago 1919 Race Riot.”

After walking around the museum, be sure to have a meal at Luella’s Southern Kitchen. Chef/owner Darnell Reed serves up delicious southern eats inspired by his great grandmother Luella’s recipes.

You don’t have to be a sports fan to enjoy a visit to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. It’s the world’s only museum dedicated to preserving the history of African American’s contribution to baseball.

No visit to Kansas City should be complete without a visit to the city’s historic jazz district. While in the area, check out well-known clubs where jazz greats like Count Basie and Charlie Parker played and the American Jazz Museum. This is one stop music lovers won’t want to miss.

Just 20 minutes from Minneapolis, Paisley Park opened in 1987 as a place for Prince to create, record and perform. These days, visitors can get an inside look at the place that inspired his genius and see instruments, costumes, awards and more. Visitors can take the 90-minute Paisley Experience Tour – a guided tour of the studios where Prince recorded some of his biggest hits and the concert hall where he rehearsed for tours and held private events and concerts. Super fans can pay extra for the VIP Experience or Ultimate Experience, more immersive experiences that aren’t available on the Paisley Experience Tour.

You’re going to need to unwind after all of that traveling. And Kneaded Relief Day Spa is just the place to do it. Owners Duke and Nichol Harvey have created a peaceful oasis where you can unplug and be pampered with a beautiful nature backdrop. Get a mani/pedi, massage or facial – or make a day of it and get all of the above!

Located in downtown Cincinnati, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center opened in 2004 as a place to educate visitors on African American’s struggle for freedom in this country. Permanent exhibits include, “The Slave Pen,” a structure recovered from Mason County, KY which was used to temporarily hold enslaved people who would be sold farther south and “From Slavery to Freedom,” an exhibit that explains the 300-year story of slavery in the United States.

The Ali Center is an award-winning museum inspired by the life and career of the Champ. Whether you visit the Spirituality Pavilion to see a timeline of Ali’s spiritual journey or shadow box with him in the interactive training exhibit, this is one museum the entire family is sure to enjoy.

If you’re in Ohio, take a tour of the Paul Laurence Dunbar House, the restored home of “We Wear the Mask” poet Paul Laurence Dunbar which was dedicated as a memorial in 1936, by the Ohio General Assembly. Visitors can see the desk where Dunbar wrote and many of his personal items, including a bicycle given to him by the Wright brothers.

The childhood home of scientist and educator George Washington Carver is now a 240-acre national park – the first unit of the National Park Service dedicated to a Black person. At the George Washington Carver National Monument, visitors can learn how Carver, who was born to an enslaved mother, overcame poverty and prejudice to become a renowned scientist.

If catfish and grits, chicken and waffles and steak and eggs are a few of your favorite breakfast combinations, you have to stop by Coffee Makes you Black in Milwaukee for a meal. They’re open Thursday - Sunday and serve breakfast until 2pm.

Bring Black history to life at the Brown V. Board of Education Historical Park, a space dedicated to the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended racial segregation in public schools. Tour the exhibits, which include photos and other memorabilia as well as a former kindergarten classroom which was restored to its 1954 appearance.