Woni Spotts

Woni Spotts is an American woman who completed visiting every country and continent in the world in 2018. According to media studies scholar Tori Omega Arthur, consensus had developed after 2019 that Spotts was the first Black woman to do so. Early life Spotts was born in 1964 in Los Angeles to Betty (née Mosley) and Roger Spotts. Her mother was a singer, dancer, and pianist and her father was a composer and arranger. Travel In 1979, when she was 15, Nolan Davis, a friend of her father's, offered her work as the subject of a documentary he was producing that involved significant overseas travel. By 1982, she had visited more than 160 countries. During this time she kept detailed records as part of her work on the documentary. She resumed her travels in 2013 and completed them in 2018. Most of her travel was not documented via social media. Recognition Travel blogger Jessica Nabongo disputed that Spotts had visited every country, saying in 2019 that Nabongo was the first Black woman to do so, a claim that was broadly accepted and publicized. Tori Omega Arthur, writing in the journal Social Media + Society, characterised Nabongo's dispute of Spott's claim as presentism, as it is based on the fact that since Spotts began her travels, multiple countries have changed borders and/or names.