Tara Roberts moved to Washington D.C. around eight years ago to work for a non-profit. It was a good job, but she wanted to do more around the issue of race.
And then, someone gave her a ticket to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. She went, even though she’s not much of one for visiting museums.
“I saw a picture there that completely altered my world. It was a picture of a group of primarily Black women in wetsuits on a boat. I had never seen a group of Black women in wetsuits on a boat before,” Roberts said.
Roberts said the picture struck a chord. She saw women who looked like her and were leading an adventurous life.
“And I didn’t know that was possible before. It really touched me,” said Roberts, who is a journalist and storyteller.
Roberts said the experience took her on an unexpected journey, one she talked about during a presentation at Western Illinois University in Macomb. She also spoke about it during a visit to the TSPR studios.
Diving with a purpose
Roberts told TSPR the women were part of a group called “Diving with a Purpose.” They search for and document slave shipwrecks around the world.
Roberts said as she read about their work, she knew she wanted to be part of this project somehow.
First, she had to learn how to scuba dive. Roberts enjoyed swimming when she grew up in Atlanta, but had never gone scuba diving.
She quit her job and took a three-month class in scuba diving. During that time, she got to know the women in “Diving with a Purpose.”
She also learned during that time that National Geographic awards grants to support people telling stories connected to nature and the environment.
Roberts received one of those grants, which helped pay for her travel. The grant required her to write 200-word blog entries about the journey.
“But soon I realized, trying to write 200 words about the trans-Atlantic slave trade is not enough space,” she said.
As Roberts listened back to the recordings of interviews with the divers, she realized there was a larger story there.
“There was something about all of these accents from all over the world, and they were telling their perspective of the story in their own words. And it just felt so powerful to me,” Roberts said.
“So I went back to Nat Geo and I said I think that this could be a really great podcast.”
National Geographic agreed, resulting in the six-episode podcast, “Into the Depths.”
Roberts also wrote about the experience in the newly released book, “Written in the Waters: A Memoir of History, Home, and Belonging.”
Stories of resilience, resistance, and survival
Roberts said the trans-Atlantic slave trade should be more than a side note in history books. She called it 400 years of history that shaped our world.
She said around 12,000 ships brought Africans to the Americas.
“12,000 ships. But I realized, when I was growing up, that I couldn’t tell you the name of a single one of those ships,” she said.
“But I could tell you the name of the Mayflower. I could tell you all about the Titanic. There’s an enormous amount of history that’s just unexplored and unexamined.”
Roberts said they’re going to the bottom of the ocean and helping bring these stories back into collective human memory.
She said 70 to 90 nations were impacted by and/or participated in the slave trade.
“There’s a way that Europe, Africa, South America, and North America would not be what they are today if not for the trade,” she said.
Roberts said an estimated 1,000 slave ships went down in the seas, but so far only around 20 have been found and properly documented. She said there is a tremendous amount of history still to be found.
And they’re not just stories of tragedy, trauma, and death.
“There are also stories of resilience and resistance and survival. And there are even stories of laughter and love and joy. It’s so much that’s a part of this history. So I feel like there’s so much work still to be done and so many more stories still to be told about it,” Roberts said.
The next part of the project
Roberts said she listened to her inner voice when she learned about the Black women scuba divers from “Diving with a Purpose.” She didn’t have an assignment or funding, but she trusted her instincts that wanted to follow them.
“I took this leap and it got me here. I feel really thankful and grateful,” she said.
Roberts is now a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence.
She’s still fairly new to scuba diving – she estimated she has done under 100 dives. But she “definitely” plans to continue exploring where there might be shipwrecks.
Roberts said they will be doing a second part of this project. She can’t go into much detail yet, but said it will honor the past and memorialize the loss of life from the slave trade.
Roberts also encouraged people to be recognize how the trans-Atlantic slave trade ended up connecting us.
“There’s a way that we exchanged cultures, religions, ideas, philosophies, goods, people. We are deeply connected because of this moment in history, but we don’t act like we’re connected to each other,” she said.
Growing up, Roberts was interested in science fiction. Some of those stories take readers to the depths of outer space. She never imagined her life would take her to the depths of the oceans, a journey that landed her on the cover and in the pages of National Geographic magazine.
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