Diving With a Purpose (DWP) is an American

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

aimed at locating and documenting shipwrecks, predominantly those related to the

Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...

History

Diving With a Purpose was founded in 2005 by Kenneth Stewart (born 1944/45), a retired copier repairman with the Tennessee Aquatic Project and the National Association of Black Scuba Divers, and Brenda Lanzendorf (1958–2008), a maritime archaeologist at

Biscayne National Park Biscayne National Park is a national park of the United States located south of Miami, Florida, in Miami-Dade County. The park preserves Biscayne Bay and its offshore barrier reefs. Ninety-five percent of the park is water, and the shore of th ...

. They met during the filming of the 2004 documentary ''The Guerrero Project'', a film chronicling efforts to locate the wreck of Spanish slave ship ''Guerrero'', which are still ongoing, although a likely candidate has since been discovered. DWP was featured in 2020 television documentary series ''Enslaved'', featuring DWP member Kramer Wimberley, starring and produced by Samuel L. Jackson. It is also the subject of a 2021 documentary titled ''Lessons from the Water: Diving with a Purpose'' by filmmaker Charles Todd.

Activities

Roughly 300 divers have participated in Diving With a Purpose's maritime archaeology program since its foundation. The program includes one week of training and requires some prior experience, with the stated aim of training divers to become "able to assist in the historical documentation and preservation of artifacts and wreck sites". An offshoot program directed at a younger audience entitled Youth Diving With a Purpose (YDWP) was introduced in 2011. The group has been involved with the discovery or documentation of numerous shipwrecks, including the '' São José Paquete Africa'' and the ''Clotilda''. Other activities of the organization have included the location and mapping of plane wrecks related to the

Tuskegee Airmen The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of primarily African American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Fighter Group, 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of th ...

in the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...

. A memorial site in

Port Huron, Michigan Port Huron is a city in and seat of government of St. Clair County, Michigan, United States. The population was 28,983 at the 2020 census. The city is bordered on the west by Port Huron Township, but the two are administered autonomously. Po ...

, was constructed in 2021. Diving With a Purpose has worked or is working with groups and federal agencies including

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep-sea exploratio ...

, the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

(NPS), the

Society of Black Archaeologists The Society of Black Archaeologists (SBA) is an international organization of Black archaeologists. The Society was founded in 2011. The founding board members are Drs. Justin Dunnavant, Ayana Omilade Flewellen, Jay Haigler, Alexandra Jones, and C ...

, and the Slave Wrecks Project, a collaboration between DWP, the Smithsonian's

National Museum of African American History and Culture The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), colloquially known as the Blacksonian, is a Smithsonian Institution museum located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was established in 2003 an ...

, the NPS,

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...

Iziko South African Museum The Iziko South African Museum, formerly the South African Museum (Afrikaans: Suid-Afrikaanse Museum), is a South African national museum located in Cape Town. The museum was founded in 1825, the first in the country. It has been on its present ...

, and the

South African Heritage Resources Agency The South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) is the national administrative body responsible for the protection of South Africa's cultural heritage. It was established through the ''National Heritage Resources Act, number 25 of 1999'' an ...

Notes

References

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External links

These Divers Search For Slave Shipwrecks and Discover Their Ancestors

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

via

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

; August 18, 2019.
Teenagers are scuba diving in Florida to help find sunken ships
''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' via YouTube; February 27, 2020.
Diving With A Purpose , Weldon Wade

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "Ideas Change Everything" (previously "Ideas Worth Sprea ...

via YouTube; December 6, 2014. Maritime archaeology Non-profit organizations based in Tennessee 501(c)(3) organizations