SUN, APR 13 | 2:00PM | HAROLD MIOSSI HALL | $20-35
When Tara Roberts first glimpsed a picture of the underwater archaeology group Diving With A Purpose, it called out to her: here were Black women and men exploring the wrecks of slave ships long lost in time. Inspired, Roberts joined them—and started on a path of discovery that would take her to locales including Thailand and Sri Lanka, South Africa and Senegal, Benin and Togo, St. Croix and Costa Rica.
But for Roberts, the journey was also intensely personal. Inspired by the stories of those who lost their lives during the Middle Passage, she decides to plumb her own family history. With the honesty of Elizabeth Gilbert, the rawness of Cheryl Strayed, the courage of Tara Westover, and the poetry of Jesmyn Ward, Roberts interweaves the voices of the past with her own present to confront the realities of the slave trade—and tell a deeper story of Black identity.
Tara Roberts is a National Geographic Explorer in Residence who reports on shipwrecks that once carried captive Africans during the transatlantic slave trade. Her research has led to the award-winning podcast series Into the Depths, downloaded more than a million times and featured in more than 100 media outlets. The first Black woman explorer to grace the cover of National Geographic magazine, the 2022 Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year, and a former fellow at MIT’s Open Documentary Lab, Roberts has worked as an editor for publications including Essence and CosmoGirl. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
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“Tara Roberts is a force of nature and a beautiful storyteller. Written in the Waters is deeply personal and moving: a tale of identity and conviction.”
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