For me, the highest standard of black hospitality
is my great grandmother.
She was so inviting. She played the piano.
It was the music that we woke up to.
So many people would come by the house just to get a bite to eat, hang out.
She just made sure that people were taken care of.
That's the reason why I think
hospitality is in my DNA.
When you think about the history of hospitality,
a lot of it was built on the backs of black and brown people.
So right now we've been almost shut out of the industry
in a real decision making perspective.
Diversity is not reflected in ownership or in management.
When people of color enter certain spaces
it's as if we're not wanted there.
It's as if we're out of place.
We sort of carry around who we are in our identity and what it means to be black.
We carry that around with us 24/7
and sometimes on vacation you kind of want to just like...
just kind of be invisible, right?
Travelers are worried about whether or not they can bring their identity with them when they travel.
We want to solve that.
There are different cultural nuances that you experience all across the country.
Each neighborhood, they all have their different nuances, they have their own language.
There's so many layers to New Orleans and what that culture really represents.
Even historically, it housed the largest population of free people of color once upon a time.
So, we thought this was like a historical pipeline
directly from Africa right to Algiers Point is where a lot of slaves were unloaded.
We need to tell a story that links it back to Africa.
We opened our first property in New Orleans
I mean, this is the way the hotel business should run.
They should by hyper-local spaces and the references that have formed the design,
it should tell a story.
We wanted the Moor to provide our travelers
with just a fundamentally different experience in New Orleans.
The journey to get something open doesn't stop unless the entrepreneur stops.
We were completely out of cash two days before we opened our doors
and the property wasn't done yet.
I went to a hardware store, filled a cart up with all of the things that we need,
that sort of final list of like, "Okay, we have to have a door handle for our guests
so let's make sure we get the door handle."
It was tough because we're sitting there thinking
these are like the final items that we really need so everything on that list was really necessary.
But then, when we're in that moment, we're trying to be like,
"Do we really need the door handle? Or can they just push it open?"
It's something about that moment, it felt like a sign.
Take the risk and go for it and it payed off.
Being a host for me,
it means replacing home for all of our travelers.
To put someone else's expressed and unexpressed needs ahead of your own.
There's room for you, right?
Who is you?
You is the person that identifies with what we have created
and you is the ability for your whole identity to travel with you.
I really wanted the Moor to represent possibility.
I wanted to showcase what Homage is capable of
but then in even a larger context,
what African Americans in hospitality, what we're capable of.
I'm proud of what we put together.
We create the things that we want to exist in the world.
Who are we building this for?
We build spaces for curious travelers.
Those that want to learn more about stories often lost.