The Black divers excavating slave shipwrecks: ‘I’m telling my ancestors: I’m with you’

Members of Diving With a Purpose search out and investigate the vessels' remains, bringing history to light and memorializing lost lives

Onboard a boat off the Florida Keys, I witness a group of divers, aged 16 to 20, freeing themselves from the weight of their oxygen tanks and masks before diving back into the waters of Biscayne national park. Where Biscayne Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean, their heads break the surface, bobbing in the open sea like specks of stars in the sky.

It's a breathtaking sight.