[1][2][3][4] According to media studies scholar Tori Omega Arthur, consensus had developed after 2019 that Spotts was the first Black woman to do so.
[5] In 1979, when she was 15, Nolan Davis,[6] a friend of her father's, offered her work as the subject of a documentary he was producing that involved significant overseas travel.
[1][7] Travel blogger Jessica Nabongo disputed that Spotts had visited every country, saying in 2019 that she herself was the first Black woman to do so, a claim that was broadly accepted and publicized.
[3] Essence wrote that because Spotts was "of a certain age" and had not made branding deals, she was effectively silenced by the same publications that championed the achievement of the younger, more media-savvy Nabongo.
[11] Melan Magazine said Spotts' claim had "caught all of us by surprise, especially as our attention was on another Black woman who was on a very public mission to achieve this same feat.