'Into The Depths' podcast follows Black divers in search for slave trade shipwrecks – NPR

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: And finally today, a key chapter in the origin story of Africans in America took place over water. Historians estimate that some 36,000 ships brought nearly 12.5 million Africans across the Atlantic Ocean, according to the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. But not all survived. Somewhere between 500 and 1,000 ships are believed to have wrecked, but only a handful have been found and documented. This is according to Tara Roberts of a new podcast from National Geographic called “Into The Depths.” She not only follows a group of Black divers, historians and archaeologists as they try to recover as much as they can of that lost chapter. She decides to become one of them. (SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, “INTO THE DEPTHS”) TARA ROBERTS: Through these ships, we could bring lost stories up from the depths and back into collective memory. Just as important, it was a way to help me understand my roots, my own family’s history and where I and we belong as Black Americans right now. MARTIN: Tara Roberts is executive producer of “Into The Depths,” and she is with us now to tell us more about it. Tara Roberts, welcome. Thank you so much for…
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