In the deep silence of the ocean floor, where time has blurred memory and saltwater holds secrets, Tara Roberts is listening for voices. She is not a treasure hunter, but a truth seeker. A National Geographic Explorer in Residence and the first Black woman to ever grace the cover of the magazine (March 2022), Roberts has spent the last seven years immersed, literally and spiritually, in the world of sunken slave ships. With unwavering focus, she has followed and dove alongside a global collective of Black scuba divers determined to recover the stories submerged in the wake of the transatlantic slave trade.
Her journey, which began in 2016 during a season of social unrest in Washington D.C., was sparked by an image, a photograph tucked into a quiet corner of the newly opened National Museum of African American History and Culture. In that frame, a group of Black women in wetsuits aboard a boat were part of the group “Diving with a Purpose.” To Roberts, the image was revolutionary. “I had never seen Black bodies in the ocean, as divers, as explorers. It was a new vision of who we are,” she said. That vision soon became her mission.
Roberts began traveling the globe, documenting, diving, and uncovering. With each wreck site, each artifact recovered, and each story unearthed, she stepped deeper into a lineage lost to most but buried in the bones of 12,000 ships. Among those ships, 1.8 million Africans perished before ever reaching shore. “That number floored me,” Roberts admitted. “Nobody ever taught us to grieve those lives. Nobody ever taught us to remember them.”
Roberts seeks true stories in the water
She and the divers she chronicles, nearly 500 trained volunteers worldwide, are working to change that. Equipped with clipboards, measuring tape, and underwater archaeology training, they help document shipwrecks and recover what remains: African trading beads, restraint instruments, ballast stones. Often, the wreckage is fragmented, wooden ships rarely survive centuries underwater — but the stories are potent.
And the work is deeply personal. In her memoir Written in the Waters, Roberts reflects on her own pilgrimage to the African continent. Her expectations were raw and hopeful, longing for a homecoming. But in places like Benin and Mozambique, she faced the complexity of being a descendant of the enslaved, not always embraced as kin. “I thought I would be welcomed home. But it was… complicated. It was all the things, revelation, disappointment, grief, understanding.”
Still, her resolve never wavered. In fact, those experiences deepened her commitment to telling fuller, truer stories. She’s clear: this is not just “Black history” or “American history,” this is global history. “Our world would not be what it is today without the slave trade. Yet most of it remains unspoken. It’s not just a missing chapter, it’s missing chapters.”
That silence, she argues, is no accident. In an age where history is being debated, diluted, and in some cases erased, Roberts speaks boldly: “No one owns our narrative but us.” Through her work and platforms like rolling out, the story persists. Not just in remembrance, but in resistance.
Indeed, resistance is a recurring theme in the shipwreck stories she’s helping to uncover. “One in every three ships had some sort of rebellion. And most were led by women,” Roberts noted. These revelations challenge the often one-dimensional portrayal of enslaved Africans. “They fought. They strategized. They were human in every way. These are stories of resilience and brilliance.”
Looking forward, Roberts has her eyes on the youth. “I want young Black girls to know they can do this too. That this life of adventure, of discovery, of purpose, it’s for them.” It’s a torch she’s passing forward: one not lit on land, but ignited beneath the surface.
With fewer than 20 of an estimated 1,000 wrecked slave ships discovered and properly documented, Roberts knows the journey is far from over. But through storytelling, scholarship, and scuba gear, she’s helping to reclaim the ocean as a sacred space of memory and meaning.
To connect with Tara Roberts, follow her at @TaraRobertsExplorer on Instagram or sign up for updates via National Geographic’s mailing list.
Because history, when reclaimed with heart and truth, doesn’t stay buried. It rises.
And thanks to Roberts, it breathes again, above and below the surface.
