Parked at a bar stool inside the Vault on this vast ship and nursing a potent liquid, Wright is bopping his head to booming beats and drinking in the scene of Tom Joyner, Salt-N-Pepa, MC Lyte and Jacque Reid mixing it up with rambunctious abandon in a corner. A throng of cruisers gyrate to Michael Jackson classics and current hip-hop cuts on the other end of the room. This is the slice of life that Wright, 49, steals for seven days every year.
“After the first cruise, my brother and I said somebody’s going to jail. Because they are not going to have this many black people have this much fun without somebody going to jail,“ he said as the red-tinted sun peaks over the Gulf of Mexico, signaling the beginning of the next day.
Brenda Nance of Detroit, who is beginning her fourth journey on the TJFV, can corroborate Wright’s testimony. As she gazes over the railing to watch thousands of African Americans perform an outdoor line dance to an R&B oldie, she says the Tom Joyner voyage has spoiled her.
“It’s the only affair where black people can get together without anything negative [being reported],“ she says, adding that she loves seeing the looks on people’s faces as throngs of black people spill onto the Tom Joyner cruise.
In addition to the celebrities, events, parties, food and devotional worship service that cater to African Americans, there is the philanthropic element that injects an extra special feeling to the weeklong affair, Wright said. “My brother and I said ‘let’s do it’ because it’s for a good cause. We had so much fun that first year,” he says of his 12th ride on the TJFV, “that we kept coming back every year. And I will keep coming back every year as long as it exists.”
–terry shropshire
- Thousands line dance while docked at the Port of Galveston, Texas
