From the Education Resource Library! Storyteller and National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts follows a team on a quest to document and identify sunken slave shipwrecks. Led by African American archival researchers, marine archaeologists, and expert scuba divers, the team at Diving with a Purpose connects maritime archaeology with conservation to tell the stories of their ancestors.
On the bottom of the world’s oceans lie historic treasures—the lost wrecks of ships that carried enslaved people from Africa to the Americas. Only a handful have been identified so far, but National Geographic explorer and Storytelling Fellow Tara Roberts is documenting the efforts of Black scuba divers and archaeologists to find more, hoping to finally bring their stories to light.
Meet a group of vibrant scuba divers determined to find, document and positively identify slave shipwrecks.
Writer and National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts aims to put women and people of color in the center of the story, encouraging audiences to imagine and experience narratives more powerfully. At Storytellers Summit, she shared her current project: following black scuba divers, historians, and archaeologists as they search for and document slave-trade shipwrecks.
