Have you ever felt a deep yearning for something more? A spark of curiosity that ignited an entirely new path? In this captivating episode, we dive into Tara Roberts’ extraordinary odyssey.
It began with a single photograph – Black women scuba divers on a quest to uncover slave shipwrecks. In that moment, Tara’s world cracked open. She left everything behind to pursue this calling, becoming one of the divers on an unprecedented mission.
You’ll discover how Tara’s pursuit led her to reclaim pieces of her ancestry erased by history. Her poignant story offers a profound reminder that our most transformative journeys often start with embracing the whispers of curiosity echoing from within.
Prepare to be moved as Tara shares wisdom from her powerful memoir, Written in the Waters: A Memoir of History, Home and Belonging. This is a tale of courage, resilience, and the triumph of following your heart’s secrets into uncharted waters.
You can find Tara at: Website | Instagram | Into the Depths podcastΒ | Episode Transcript
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photo credit: Becky Hale
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Episode Transcript:
Jonathan Fields: [00:00:00] So have you ever felt like you’re just disconnected from a sense of purpose? Kind of like you’re meant for something different. Something deeper, something bigger. Yet you can’t quite put your finger on what that is. Sometimes it takes a random moment, bundled with a profound act of courage to change everything. After years of trying to figure out how to live the life she wanted and build a career that truly lit her up, my guest today, Tara Roberts, had just such a moment. A chance discovery of a single photograph launched her into uncharted waters, leaving behind everything to follow her curiosity and a call she just knew had to be pursued. Even though she had no idea where it would lead, if anywhere, with barely a thread to pull on, that one photo led Tara to track down a team of black scuba divers who had devoted themselves to uncovering and preserving slave ship remnants worldwide. And she just had to be a part of it. Not just the telling of their story, but becoming a part of it. Even training in scuba and joining the dive team herself, having zero experience before that. And this pursuit cracked open just deep ancestral memories buried for generations, sparking a profound awakening. It led to a collaboration with National Geographic that eventually found her name, National Geographic Explorer of the year and landed her on the cover of the magazine, the very same one she’d fallen in love with and lost herself in as a child. Tara’s powerful new memoir, Written in the Waters: A Memoir of History, Home and Belonging, offers a beautiful exploration of the courage required to confront our shadows through vulnerability and wisdom. She just illuminates a breathtaking path for healing the past. So excited to share this conversation with you! I’m Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.
Jonathan Fields: [00:01:52] It seems like for you there’s a year, 2017, which becomes this just giant pivot moment of awakening, big inciting incident in that year and wanted deep into what happens in that year and then where it leads to and how it really it leads to an entirely new adventure and almost like Season of Life. But I also want to talk a little bit before we even get there about what life looks like leading up to that. You had spent years in the magazine world as both founding your own publication, editing, then spending a year or so backpacking around the world, really discovering young women who were doing just amazing things, and then started a nonprofit to help discover these women and then see if you could actually help them fund their dreams. Talk to me a little bit about what does life look like for you leading up to 2017.
Tara Roberts: [00:02:47] Such a good question. Yeah. So I’ll flash back to 2015 because 2016 was the big move. And then 2017 stuff started to happen, but in 2015 I was living in Atlanta. I’d been running my nonprofit for about six years at that point, and quite honestly, we were struggling. Running a non-profit is never easy and trying to find funding, trying to make sure you’re on mission. And we were trying to support young women change makers from all over the world. So it also didn’t have a clear country status like we’re we’re trying to do this sort of global work, which made fundraising a little bit tricky. I also like I was living on crumbs, and I wanted to devote as much time as I could to this work, so I didn’t want to have a real job, you know, where it would take my my mental power away. So I was working like in a $10 an hour museum job.
Jonathan Fields: [00:03:55] It’s like $10 an hour museum job by day, and nonprofit founder and world changer by night. Yes, yes. Which is actually not so unusual in the story of nonprofit founders who don’t have these super high profile mega funding backgrounds, like there are tens of thousands in a really similar situation.
Tara Roberts: [00:04:15] Yeah, yeah. It’s true. Running a nonprofit is not easy. Like my hats are off to all the people in this space who are making it work. I found it really challenging. And my superpower is in none of that. You know, like I had on my admin hat, my fundraising hat, my programmatic hat, like all of these hats that were not hats that I would ordinarily put on. So I was also feeling tired, a bit off purpose. My work has been as a journalist and as a storyteller, but I’ve been so far away from that work. So 2015, I was struggling a bit and trying to figure out what to do next. And then I saw this, uh, spiritual psychic person who very quickly confirmed, um, that I wasn’t where I needed to be and that I actually needed to be in her world. Um, I should step away from the nonprofit. Like, with a quickness.
Jonathan Fields: [00:05:32] How does that land with you when you hear that? Because it seems like, you know, this is so much of your heart at that point.
Tara Roberts: [00:05:38] Oh, it was devastating. This was my baby. Like, how do you step away from your baby? I put six years of my life into this. All my savings, like all the things I went all in for this nonprofit. Non-profit. I decided that I did need to step away, but I had like a two year plan. I’m like, okay, I have to get somebody to step in. We’ve got to train, we’ve got to get it moving. But I saw her in October and she was like, by the end of the year, you need to step away from this job. And I was like, what? Are you freaking kidding? What? I can’t do that.
Jonathan Fields: [00:06:17] You’re like, thanks, but, you know, like, I have to live in the real world.
Tara Roberts: [00:06:20] Right, right, right. But what’s amazing is stuff happened that made what she suggested come true. I happened to have a friend who I hadn’t talked to. This is this way too much information?
Jonathan Fields: [00:06:39] No. It’s good, it’s.
Tara Roberts: [00:06:39] Good, it’s good. Okay, well, the story is. Before I spoke to her, I’d gone to a friend’s wedding. Um, a friend that I hadn’t seen in a long time. And some of our mutual friends showed up at this wedding. And so one guy I, amid all these friends in India, hadn’t really seen them in a long time. And this one guy that I saw had just started a no. He’d already been working for this nonprofit that had offices in the US. And so we hadn’t seen each other in a long time. And when we did, he was like, I’m in D.C., You’re in Atlanta. We should hang out. But you know how you say those things and then nothing really happens. So we had this connection in August. Then I see the psychic reader in October. She’s like, step away. It’s so funny. I think maybe a week later and I’m in tears. Just like, how do I do? What do I do? I don’t know. A week later, that friend reached out to me and he was like, I’ve been invited to speak at a conference in Atlanta, and I was going to say no to it. But I don’t know, I just thought about you. And I was like, we said we should hang out. So what Are you there? If you’re there, I’ll come. And I was like, oh my God, that would be amazing. So he comes and I tell him and he said, you know, I think your nonprofit was great. You did some good work, but I’ve always thought that you should be working for my nonprofit like it’s a bigger footprint, had a really, uh, deep space in the social, entrepreneurial world. And he was like, you need to come work for us. And I was like, yeah, yeah. He’s like, trust me, just send me your resume. So I did, and by November, by December, they had offered me a job and the job was in Washington, DC. And even though it was still a step in the nonprofit world, it was a job that was a little bit closer to storytelling. It wasn’t storytelling, but it was working communications. And I was like, well, at least this would be a step back. And maybe this does make sense. Um, and I found another person in the organization who really did want to step up and become the leader. So by January, I had an offer. There was a new person that had stepped up to the organization, and I was free to move on to the next experience. So I did move to DC, and I think the universe works in just surprising ways, because that job got me to DC and it was a great job. Like, it’s a great company, it’s a great job. But I found quickly that it also wasn’t quite it. Like this. Doing communications work is adjacent to journalism and storytelling, but it’s really not that. And I don’t think I realized that fully before. So I was like, wow, this isn’t quite it either.
Jonathan Fields: [00:09:50] Right. You find yourself in a new city. This thing that you’ve built for six years, you’ve kind of hand it off. At this point. You’re in a new place doing something where you think this is the next thing, and then you have this growing awareness that maybe not so much. And yet you’ve you’ve left the thing behind. And I’m guessing, like you’re not thinking about going back to that at this point.
Tara Roberts: [00:10:09] Definitely not. No no no no. And this is also what was happening for me. So now we’re in 2016. Yeah. And this was a year. If you reflect back to that time, it was a year when conversations of race were big on the national stage in a way that they hadn’t been in a long time. And all of my work before this had been in the gender equity space. So I’ve been trying to support women and girls all over the world and helping them. Um, yeah, just have more agency and more support. And that I thought was happening not just because of my work. It felt like there was a huge global effort, at least over the last 20 years, where things for women and girls have really shifted. We still got a ways to go, but there was a marked difference. And so I was feeling like there was this was right for me to step away from the gender equity work. And I was really interested in stepping into the racial healing space, because I really wanted to just help heal the space in some way. But I didn’t know what to do. Like, this wasn’t my world fully. I mean, I am a black woman, so it is sort of always my world, but not really. And I tried to bring this lens to the nonprofit, which was doing some work in the space, but that wasn’t their core mission. They had other things that they were trying to accomplish. And the work that they were doing didn’t feel like enough for me. Like I wanted to just go deeper. So I’m in this moment. If we trace back to what is the moment like where I’ve moved to this new city? As you just said, I’m working at a job that doesn’t feel like it’s quite the right fit. I want to be doing more work of service in a different space, and I don’t know what to do. That’s where I was, and I was feeling off mission. Um.
Jonathan Fields: [00:12:11] What does that feel like?
Tara Roberts: [00:12:13] It felt horrible. I felt depressed. It’s probably eating too much, not exercising. I still don’t feel in my power. And I wasn’t, by the way, like, I realized I wasn’t that good at communications work either. I was like, I kept forgetting stuff. I’m like, oh, right, I need to be doing this. And I was responsible for social media and I’m like. I don’t really know what I’m doing. So I also wasn’t showing up, I think in a great way for my team. I was trying the best I could, but it wasn’t one of my superpowers, so I’m feeling like I’m failing at the work that I am doing. I just felt, you know, like there’s a yearning inside or actually, it’s not a yearning. It’s just a discomfort inside where I didn’t feel right in my own skin and I didn’t know how to solve it.
Jonathan Fields: [00:13:10] And that, you know, you’re describing your very personal circumstance at that moment, but how many other people have hit a moment similar to that, where they’re like just the sensations and the emotions, the feelings you just described, they’re just like swimming in that. And especially like once you’ve you’re a little further into life and you do have a skill set and you do have a track record and you do have things you’re passionate about, and then you wake into this moment that says, I’m not leveraging those capabilities, and I’m also not quote on mission. Or maybe I’m on mission, but it’s somebody else’s mission. It’s not the thing that’s speaking from me. It’s speaking to me.
Tara Roberts: [00:13:53] Yes.
Jonathan Fields: [00:13:53] And that’s a hard moment.
Tara Roberts: [00:13:55] Yeah. And to especially to come from having run your own thing. So you’re making decisions about where where you’re going and where you’re not going, and suddenly you’re in a space where you’re not able to make those sort of decisions and you are in a support role. You’re on a team. And so you have to be a team player. And I am fortunate that I worked with really phenomenal individuals who are change makers in their own right, up to doing great work in the world. But this race thing, just like it was just calling me.
Jonathan Fields: [00:14:30] So you’re trying to figure out your way through this experience. What happens? What happens that changes things?
Tara Roberts: [00:14:38] Something that I never could have predicted. Here we are in 2017 and how fortunate that I’m in DC in this moment when the National Museum of African American History and Culture opens. And it was a big deal when that museum opened. You know, that museum is I don’t know, it took like 20 years to build or more. It’s, um, price tag of like half $1 billion. And it’s the first museum of its kind on the National Mall. So it was a big deal. And I have to note, like, I wasn’t that interested in history. Like I was not a museum goer. I’m like, oh, I guess, you know, museums, whatever. Even though I was working for a museum before I left Atlanta. But that’s not my jam. But this museum, because it was such a big deal, I felt like I had to go. And especially because I lived in D.C. at the time. So I was like, I have to go. But I tried to get tickets for like six months and couldn’t get tickets. It was. You know, it was a hot property. But then one day someone at the job got extra tickets for the museum. And so on this day, I decided to play hooky. Sorry, everybody. That’s what I was doing that day that I didn’t show up for work. But I decided to play hooky and go to the museum, and I decided to take my time going through this museum. So I went slowly. I tried to read, like, all the exhibits, and it’s it’s a big museum with a lot of history in it. I went through the bottom, which, you know, the bottom starts in like the 1500s, the 1600s. So it’s telling older history and it takes you up. I don’t know, actually. I don’t remember if it takes you to reconstruction or if it takes you a little after that, but it’s the, the top floors that have, you know, like all the exciting stuff where you’ve got cultural impacts of African Americans on the culture. You’ve got a lot of the winds and a lot of the accomplishments. But because I was going slow and I was trying to take it all in before I could get to those floors, I ended up on the second floor, which is this tiny floor that most people skip because it really is. It’s a tiny floor. It’s like an archival floor. So people go there to do research. But there are a couple of exhibits on that floor, and there was one exhibit that had a picture in it that completely stopped me in my tracks. It was a picture of a group of primarily black women in wetsuits on a boat, hugging an older black gentleman. Jonathan, I’d never seen a picture of black women in wetsuits on a boat before like I’d never seen that. And I was like, oh my goodness, they looked so beautiful to me. They look so free and so joyous.
Tara Roberts: [00:17:51] And what’s really amazing is that I’ve gone back and I’ve looked at that picture. I have a picture of that picture on my computer, and it is not a picture that should have stopped me in my tracks. Like, it’s not like this gorgeous portrait. It’s a normal, it’s almost like a photo. It’s just like a snapshot. I mean, they’re posing a little bit, but like it’s a regular picture. But for whatever reasons, in that moment it stopped me. I almost felt like the heavens parted and the angels were singing like it was like a spotlight on that picture. And I just remember staring at it. And I think one of the reasons why it struck me so much is because when I was younger, I used to be a nerd. I still am a nerd. Like I love to read books. Makes me so happy to like, fall into a book and to fall into someone else’s world. And yeah, when I was growing up, I read a lot of books. My mother was a reading teacher, and she used to go to these reading conferences all over the country, and publishers would show up at these reading conferences because they wanted teachers to adopt their books. And so my mom would like, you know, get books for me. And she would come home with these boxes of books. And I loved it. And the books that I loved the most were fantasy sci fi books. That’s also probably a reason why I didn’t love museums, because I was either in my imagination or I was somewhere in the future.
Jonathan Fields: [00:19:30] It’s like, this is concrete and it’s the past. So interesting.
Tara Roberts: [00:19:34] But. So I developed this love of fantasy then and particularly loved. I still do like I still read young adult fantasy books. Like more than anything, I’m up on top of like, all the new authors. I’m like, oh yeah, I read that series and it was really good. But I love stories of like the characters who are on quests and they’re out to save the kingdom in some way. You know, they got their swords or they’re, you know, a little bit of magic inside of them, and they’ve got their trusty comrades and they’re out to save the kingdom. I devoured books like that, but as I grew older, I just started to see that none of the characters in those books ever looked like me. Never. Most of the books that had characters that looked like me were about struggle or trauma or tragedy. They were very rarely about wonder or curiosity or magic. So I think somewhere in my mind, I began to believe that that type of adventurous life isn’t for me. I mean, I knew I didn’t have, like, I wasn’t going to go out with a sword and save the kingdom, but I still, like I always imagined that I would be a storyteller, but I thought I really wanted to be an adventurer. Storyteller. Like, I wanted to be out in the world losing myself inside of other cultures and other people and telling like adventurous stories. Hiking somewhere, like living in a tent, you know, like just doing really, really adventurous storytelling.
Tara Roberts: [00:21:19] But I really stopped believing that I could do that. So to see that picture and to see these women who were scuba divers, I think that’s why it sparked something in me. And I was also in this moment where I’m like, what am I doing with myself? Who am I? Like, what am I doing? And so I stopped, like their picture stopped me. But then I read to find out who they were and what they were doing. And I found out that they were a part of this group called diving with a purpose, and that their mission was to help search for and document slave shipwrecks around the world. And I was like, are you freaking kidding me? What they’re doing? What? That’s amazing. Like, not only are they adventurers, but they’re on a real life quest to change something. And they’re changing something inside of this conversation of race because they’re bringing these stories back into memory. So I sat there for like an hour and I googled them. I tried to read everything I could about them. The exhibit was one of those exhibits where you could, um, it’s interactive. So you could pretend like you were excavating a ship. I stayed there for for like 30 minutes, playing with the exhibit and just feeling lightness in my body once again. And my body had felt so heavy before this, so like full of darkness and tiredness and air. But in that moment I just felt so light.
Jonathan Fields: [00:23:00] And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. I guess you discover through, you know, really deepening into this also that okay, so this isn’t a snapshot just of history. This is actually going on now.
Tara Roberts: [00:23:14] Exactly.
Jonathan Fields: [00:23:15] You know, like this isn’t something where oh how cool that they’re out there. And they did this thing. And what an amazing thing. And what, you know, they they explored and they had this impact. And you’re like they’re actually doing this now.
Tara Roberts: [00:23:31] Right?
Jonathan Fields: [00:23:31] Right. This is not over.
Tara Roberts: [00:23:33] No.
Jonathan Fields: [00:23:34] And I’m guessing the seed gets planted pretty strongly, like. Okay, so if they’re doing this now, how do I be a part of this?
Tara Roberts: [00:23:41] Yeah. I have to say. So I’m not a scuba diver. Did we talk about that? I’m from Atlanta, Georgia, which, you know, is landlocked. Like, I didn’t know anything about the ocean, but I did love the water. And I was a swimmer. I would swim in pools all the time. And I love the water. Like I love to swim. So there was something that was really beautiful to me about this work that they were doing in the water. And at the same time, I didn’t know if I could do that.
Jonathan Fields: [00:24:18] Yeah. I mean, you’re you’re a storyteller.
Tara Roberts: [00:24:20] Right?
Jonathan Fields: [00:24:21] It’s like all of your your past is like, behind the camera. Like writing, editing, doing all this stuff, communicating, advocating, not strapping on tanks and a mask and, like, going down underwater.
Tara Roberts: [00:24:33] No, no, I was like, I don’t know about that. But I do feel called to them. So and this is again, this is the universe I think works in really beautiful ways, because if I was not working for the nonprofit that I was working for, I wonder if I had, I would have reached out because I decided these people probably need funding, and my nonprofit gave out grants to people doing extraordinary work in the world. So I wasn’t thinking, oh, I will become a diver with them. Initially, I was just like, how can I help support them? And so I reached out. And the gentleman in the photo is a gentleman named Ken Stewart, who at the time was 72 years young. I reached out to Ken and he’s, like, wonderful and so welcoming and warm. And I was like, hey, you know, I work for this nonprofit. I came across your picture in the museum. I’m like, I don’t know, do you guys need funding? Can I nominate you for a grant from my nonprofit? And he was so funny. He was like, what? You got money? Yeah, we need money. Yes, yes. So I, I reached I decided to nominate him, and I reached out to the folks at the nonprofit. I’m like, I met this incredible man, and there’s this incredible group that’s doing this fantastic work.
Tara Roberts: [00:26:06] I think we should support it. And the group was excited about him and they were like, oh my God, let’s start some conversations. So we started, I think we had maybe three conversations, long conversations where they were trying to figure out, is this the right fit? And ultimately they decided that it wasn’t. And that’s because my organization really supported social entrepreneurs. And there’s a certain language, there’s a certain focus that you have to have around systemic change. And Ken, he’s of a different generation. He doesn’t speak social entrepreneurial speak. So he just didn’t hit the notes that they would need him to hit for their board to approve him. So that didn’t work out. But maybe it was never supposed to work out because Ken and I became friends, and then he is the one that said the magic words and gave me the entree that maybe I wouldn’t have given myself. And our last conversation about the work of the nonprofit, he said to me, and he typically calls me by my full name. He just likes to say that. But he was like, Tara Roberts, do you know that you live in the epicenter of black scuba diving. And I was like, what are you talking about? I live in DC. And he was like, that’s what I’m talking about. All the incredible cats are right there in DC. And I was like, are you serious? He’s like. Yes. The guy who founded the National Association of Black Scuba Divers, this guy named Doctor Albert Joseph Jones right there in DC, the oldest black scuba diving club in the United States, right there in DC. A lot of the instructors for diving with a purpose right there in DC. So he was like, do you want to come dive with us? He was like, if you want to come dive with us, I will get you in a class immediately. And I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes I do. I want to do it. Yes. So Ken got me into the club. It’s called the Underwater Adventure Seekers. They have been around since the 1950s. It’s incredible. Like the 1950s, and they had a class that had just started. So again, the way the universe works. So he got me in the class and it was there. I still wasn’t thinking about doing storytelling. I was just so excited to have permission to be a part of the work, and I just wanted to help. I was like, well, I want to dive and help bring this, this history back into memory. But as I trained with them and they are serious trainers like you can go get your scuba certification in a weekend at a resort. Not with the underwater adventure seekers. They are like, no, no, no. We treat this very seriously. So it’s a three month long course. We spent one day a week in the pool and then a second day of the week in the classroom with our textbooks. So like three months. No joke. Learning, learning, learning. And it was during that process that I got to know the divers, and I was like, these are some of the most incredible human beings. All volunteers. Generous, kind, funny, crazy. I was like, wow. And then I also got to know a bit more about the work of diving with a purpose and more about the ships. And I was just like, wow, people should know about this work. They should know about what these divers are doing. It’s incredible. And then I was like, wait a minute, I’m a journalist. I’m a storyteller. Maybe I can help tell the story.
Jonathan Fields: [00:30:03] It’s all coming together.
Tara Roberts: [00:30:05] Yes.
Jonathan Fields: [00:30:06] Right.
Tara Roberts: [00:30:07] Yes, yes, yes. I was like, this would be a worthy story to tell. So I asked Ken and their board if I could help tell their story, and they said yes. And I was like, I’m all in. So I trained with them. It took a couple of months. I got their permission, and then I was like, I’m going to quit my job. I want to go all in with this. And I didn’t have a real plan. Like I didn’t have an assignment. I’d been so long out of the journalism world, I think I was like, I don’t even know editors anymore. So no one was checking for this work. I didn’t have funding for it either. But I was like, this is I have to do this. So I’m going to do it no matter what.
Jonathan Fields: [00:30:58] Yeah. It’s like the thing you can’t not do.
Tara Roberts: [00:31:00] Yeah. That’s like some kind of way it will work itself out. I have a little bit of savings, so I’m going to go all in. And they were doing missions all over the world. So they were doing missions in Mozambique and South Africa, Senegal, Costa Rica, Saint Croix, all around the US. And I was like, I don’t want to do this. Like on the weekend where I’m like, oh, hi, where are you? Maybe I can come in for a day or two. I was like, I want to go all in. And the only way to do that is to do this full time and to really travel with them. So this was all of 2017. And also for diving with a purpose. Like you can’t just show up so you have to get your scuba certification. But then they also require you to get 30 ocean dives under your belt so that you can practice your skills and do the work that they do under the water. So I was like, okay, I got to get my 30 ocean dives in. I was like, I’m just going to focus on that. So I quit my job, and the friend who originally told me that I needed to work for his nonprofit got married in early 2018, so I had been planning to go to his wedding and he’s from India and he was getting married in India. So I was like, I’m going to go to his wedding and then I’m going to stay in Southeast Asia and I’m going to get my 30 ocean dives in, and then I’m going to figure out the rest. And so I did that. And while I was there, I came across, um, a grant application for National Geographic. And I was like, oh yeah, maybe Nat Geo would be interested in supporting this work, even though I didn’t realize that they gave out grants.
Jonathan Fields: [00:32:58] And it’s like, this is also I mean, it’s the confluence of so many things all at once. It’s like you’ve got these storytelling skills, then you’ve got nonprofit world skills and two different contexts now and relationships. And then you’ve got like the exposure to diving with purpose and just this deep purpose and really uncovering these Is wrecked ships and telling the story of what really happened and the people. And then it all comes together because you’re like, all right, I’m committed to the cause right now. I’m all in on this. Like, I don’t know how it’s going to work and then like, but for the fact that you had had nonprofit experience and you understood the world of grants and even knowing that there were things there to apply to and then how to actually tell the story. Yeah. To a grant, you know, like giving committee. It’s like everything you had done up until this point all comes together.
Tara Roberts: [00:33:52] You know what, Jonathan? I actually had not made that connection. So thank you for for threading that needle for me. You’re right. That probably was a huge help. And I also will say that I did read Nat Geo as a kid, and I loved the stories of those photographers and those writers. They were doing the sort of work that I dreamed of doing. But again, I never really saw myself in that magazine. And so I didn’t think that that would be a connection for me. But then it was. And you know what it was, this is also this is I don’t think I’ve talked about this yet because I just realized it. But in 2018, it was right when I was doing all of this, starting the training work, they put out an issue called the race issue. And it was Nacchio’s moment to reckon with its own past around race. So a magazine that I hadn’t really read since I was young suddenly came, in my view, and I thought that the race issue was actually beautiful. It was well done. And I was so impressed that Nat Geo had taken on like, let’s own our past, and let’s say that we’re going to move forward in a new way. So that impressed me, and that’s what had me go search them. I was like, Well, what else are they doing? Let me check this out. And then I discover that they give out grants and they give out storytelling grants. And that particular year, they were really focused on the ocean. And they were deeply interested in human history and culture. So I was like, oh my God, I think this might be a match. Let me put in an application.
Jonathan Fields: [00:35:38] When you send that in, do you have an expectation that you’re going to get it or you’re just sort of like tossing it to the wind and like, kind of forget about it?
Tara Roberts: [00:35:47] I tossed it to the wind. Well, I put in two applications, like there were two opportunities with them, and I put in the first one and I didn’t get it. The second one, I was like, well, I’d already started to think about, oh, do I do a GoFundMe? Oh, what can I sell? How much money do I need to be able to travel with these divers and really like not have to come back like to, to to be there. And I had sort of bankrupted myself with the nonprofit, and right before the nonprofit, I had done my own magazine, so I bankrupted myself. Then I put all my savings into the magazine, and then I. I replenished my coffers. But then I did it again with the nonprofit. So it’s not like I was also sitting on a lot of money, but I was like, there has to be a way. And even if I have to, like, shoot things myself, I can’t travel necessarily with a crew, which I didn’t really know how to travel with a crew anyway. That’s not really how I tell stories, but I was like, I’m going to find a way to do this. It will work out somehow, if not National Geographic. It’s something I started looking at. I was like, well, could I, could I be a correspondent in South Africa, like, could I? And then I could travel back and forth from South Africa to Mozambique, and then maybe I could find a way to do something in Senegal. I was just trying to be creative and spitball a way to make it happen.
Tara Roberts: [00:37:17] But then, um, so I applied in like March or February somewhere around there, and I didn’t hear back until September. So it was a little nail biting. But then September, I get the notification and it says congratulations. So that gave me a small grant. It wasn’t a huge grant, but it was enough to be able to travel. And that’s what started this whole journey. I never could have predicted that the journey would take me to where I am today. I just thought I would write. And actually, that was what my proposal was, was to write blog entries about my travels. So originally I was just writing 200 word blog entries, and then I realized after being on the road for, I don’t know, like four months or so, I was like, I cannot tell this history in 200 word blog entries. This is. There’s so much here. Like this is a treasure trove of story. And it’s not just the divers which. And then there are a bunch of divers. I could tell individual stories about all the divers. It’s not just the ships. Even though I could tell individual stories about the ships, but it’s also about the transatlantic slave trade. But it’s not just about like the transatlantic slave trade. One big broad story. It’s Mozambique’s interaction with this ship and with this trade. It’s South Africa, it’s Senegal, it’s I also ended up going to Benin and Togo. Like it’s all of these countries have a relationship to this history.
Tara Roberts: [00:39:02] And there are like a million stories inside of each one of those. So I was like, oh my goodness, there’s so much here to tell. So that sent me back to Nat Geo. I was like, okay, y’all, I think there’s more stories here. And I started to hear the stories. I traveled with my recorder. I traveled with a camera and a video camera, and I tried to record it in as many mediums as possible. But I quickly realized, I’m not a filmmaker, and I’m okay with that. Hats off to all filmmakers in the world like it is not easy to tell a story on the road in that way. So I got to worry about batteries and sunlight, and it was too much for me. But my trusty audio recorder, which I was using to just record all the interviews so that I’d have references for the blogs. I was like, there was something magical about all of the accents that I was hearing, and all of the people that were speaking about their perspectives in their own words and their own ways. I just started to hear the story and I thought it was a podcast. I was like, this should be a narrative podcast. So I went back to Nat Geo and they named me a storytelling fellow and gave me more funding so that I could produce, um, this podcast called Into the Depths, which is only six episodes, but it tells a bigger story.
Jonathan Fields: [00:40:37] But it makes a big impact. Also like this Land, and it gets a lot of attention because it’s gorgeous storytelling and it’s important storytelling, and it’s deep and it’s thoughtful and soulful. So when that lands, I mean, it’s interesting. So like you’re going through this journey of saying, okay, first I have to do this thing. I don’t even really know what it is or what my role is going to be. Just saying, all right, I’m going to go hang out at my my friend’s wedding in India. I’ll get in my 30 dives discovering this like small grant from Nat Geo and then realizing, okay, this is giving me enough money to go down and actually start to do the thing and to dive yourself also and then realizing through conversations, oh, this is so much bigger than I thought it was, going back to them and saying, can we dance a little bit bigger? And then saying, yes, like, let’s do this. And then leading to this beautiful like awful. I feel like that series is it’s an offering.
Tara Roberts: [00:41:33] Wow. Thanks for saying that.
Jonathan Fields: [00:41:35] You know, it’s like an invitation. And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. What’s going through your heart and mind as you’re moving through like these? Different. You’re diving. You’re actually in the water. You’re seeing the history with your own eyes, and then you’re you’re talking to people, hearing the stories in their own voices and their lived history, and then seeing and being able to touch this buried history as you’re moving through all this and saying, okay, now part of my work here is I need to actually be the storyteller and share this with the world. But how is this affecting you just on a personal level?
Tara Roberts: [00:42:13] When I started this work, which is maybe dumb, like, you’ll be like, duh, hello, black girl, slave shipwrecks, the history. Of course, this is personal for you, but I wasn’t thinking about this as a personal story. I was thinking that in the world, it needs to be our collective history. We need to remember it and to know it. And I was thinking about the impact that it might have on young people, the impact it might have on different groups. I was not thinking about this as a personal story, and that is what unfolds over time. And I realize while I have been afraid of this history, much of the way that history that centers African Americans in particular, tends to center inside of our pain and our trauma and our tragedy. And it actually had started to become traumatizing for me to revisit those stories. Not that those stories weren’t important, but there was a way that they they stay in the trauma. And it’s just it was too much. I was like, I can’t do it. Even though I have now volunteered. And I’m like, I’m telling stories about the transatlantic slave trade. So I’m leaning in. But I also felt like there’s a way to tell these stories that doesn’t have to center inside of the trauma, that there’s a way that we can focus on the healing, which was much more interesting to me. And we can focus on the honoring, too, which I think is a piece that is missing. That was more Were of my approach.
Tara Roberts: [00:44:07] And then I had this encounter with my mother’s pastor. So it was just me and my mom growing up. And we’re pretty close. And even though when I started this work, like we’ve talked about this, I was mid-career. So I’m very much a grown person doing this work who’s traveled a lot in the world. But my mother was just like, oh Lord, my baby is just traveling all over the world like we are. I need to make sure you are protected. And so she asked her pastor to bless me, and I happened to be at her house during Easter weekend when this happened. He was visiting that week, and he’s this incredible human being named Bishop Jack Bomar of Hillside International Chapel and Truth Center in Atlanta, Georgia. And Bishop Jack, because you don’t say no to my mother. Period. Like nobody says no to my mother. You’re like, okay, Miss Roberts, we will bless your child. So he offers me a blessing. And that blessing also shifted the way that I thought about this work, the way that I thought about the stakes around this work. What he said to me, he said, Tara, while you do this important work around the world, you need to ask permission of the ancestors to do this work. You need to ask them to guide you, to make your way smooth and harmonious. You need to speak their names. And then he kept saying that he was like, speak their names, speak their names, speak their names.
Tara Roberts: [00:45:52] And I have to be honest that when I was thinking about this work again, thinking in broad strokes, I wasn’t thinking about the Africans as individuals in those cargo holds. I thought about them more as statistics, as victims, but not as people. And Bishop Jack gave me a way to see them newly. He made me realize and like, here’s a stat that also hit home. And that helped me ground what he was saying, because I didn’t know this until I started this work. But there were approximately 1.8 million Africans who died just in the crossing from Africa to the Americas. We’re not talking about the number of people who died once they arrived and were enslaved just in the ocean. And I remember hearing that number, which is a number I didn’t know. I had no idea that it was that many people who died. Um, and I was like, who’s grieving those people who’s even acknowledging that enormous loss of life, who’s honoring them? And what Bishop Jack helped me see was not only I was not doing that either, but that those people, those 1.8 million people were people. They were mothers and fathers and daughters and sons and farmers, mathematicians, poets, writers, like they were all the things, and they deserved to be acknowledged as so. So that deepened the work. And it made me think that this is not just healing of the present, but there’s an opportunity to heal the past. Because, I don’t know, maybe time is not linear.
Tara Roberts: [00:47:49] I don’t know, that’s a whole other conversation, but putting some of those souls to rest. This is another thing that Bishop Jack said. He was like, you know, there’s, um, a myth or belief that, um. Well, this is true, that the Atlantic Ocean is one of the most turbulent oceans on the planet. And some say that’s because of all of those lost souls who haven’t been put to rest. So there’s an opportunity for us to honor the ancestors and to put them to rest. And I was like, I had never, ever thought about that. So that was a shift. And then now that I’m starting to see these ancestors as people, I’m starting to think about my own ancestors, which I had not thought about at all. I was one of those persons who didn’t want to know the stories of my ancestors, because I thought that it was just too painful to know. My mother is sort of the keeper of some of our family’s lore, and so I’ve always known who my great great grandfather is. That’s the last person that we can trace back. And he was born in 1837, in North Carolina, in Edenton, North Carolina. And so we’ve always had a picture of him on the wall, but I wasn’t curious about him at all. I never asked stories, didn’t want to know because he was born enslaved. And I was like, oh, it’s too much. I can’t, can’t even embrace that. But being a part of this work, meeting some of the descendants of people who came over on the ships, particularly the Clotilda, which is a ship that was found in mobile, Alabama, it’s the most recent ship that was found meeting those people who know the stories of their ancestors and who are so proud of their ancestors.
Tara Roberts: [00:49:51] It gave me a little courage. And so I ended up hiring a genealogist to see if I could trace back to a slave ship. I couldn’t. But I learned some stuff about Jack that I. That Jack is my ancestor, that I was like, oh my God, I was so afraid to know this man’s story. But his story is incredible. He was born enslaved, but he bought, like over 175 acres of land. What? I didn’t know that. I also found out that he fought in the Civil War. He was a part of the United States Colored Troops. What? Like my family. We didn’t know this information. Here’s this guy who’s contributing, who’s, you know, like, his life was more than the sum of his enslavement. And I think that that is one of the lessons that I’ve learned throughout this work is when we talk about black history, like it does tend to center inside of the trauma of it. But the history, the stories are so much bigger than that. It’s stories of Resilience, its stories of resistance, its stories of creativity, its stories of survival, its all of these stories and these stories. They deserve to be remembered and told.
Jonathan Fields: [00:51:08] And you put yourself in the center of not only saying, okay, I’m going to recognize these as individuals and not statistics. I’m going to look at the broader, you know, like experience of what happened. But now also let me actually reexamine my own history. And within that, you know, you you discover all of this beauty really. And power.
Tara Roberts: [00:51:29] Really is. Yes. You know, I feel so connected to Jack now. I am like, I feel like we’re we’re there, you know, like, we got some similarities and maybe I took them from him. But if not for this work, I wouldn’t have explored that. I wouldn’t know that I would be missing disconnection. That roots me in a way that I never even knew I needed. So it’s quite powerful.
Jonathan Fields: [00:51:58] Yeah. Through all of this, you bring so many of these stories back, it becomes this deep, rich personal experience of awakening and transformation and reconnection, like homecoming in a lot of different ways. It’s almost like that sense of belonging that you were searching for a couple of years earlier and that sense of purpose. You’re like, oh, right. Actually, you know, I can look outside, but also I’m looking within and within my own history as well. My own ancestry. Yeah. You end up, you know, as you know, you’re an explorer for Nat Geo now, right? And you end up on the cover of Nat Geo. So like that little girl who’s looking at Nat Geo and like, saying, this is so cool. So many adventures, but never seeing a representation of you in the magazine. And then like, fast forward, you become that representation. What’s that like?
Tara Roberts: [00:52:49] Mind boggling. That’s what it is. I couldn’t have Of imagined that, um, that little girl who loved fantasy books, who wanted to be a part of an adventure, would really become an explorer with National Geographic and end up on the cover. I just I couldn’t have imagined that. And then that same year that I was on the cover, they named me the explorer of the year. Do you know how many incredible explorers there are who are doing fantastic work in the world? So for them to acknowledge that, like, oh my goodness, it’s I think about what that picture did for me in the museum. And I imagine that maybe this moment might be that for some other little girl who’s like, if she can do it, I can do it too. And of course she can, you know. So that feels it feels incredible. What is also amazing is I mean, National Geographic is an iconic, huge brand. And they leaned into this storytelling and they leaned in, partly because people from all over the world were curious and interested. So sometimes it feels like this history in particular is siloed, that it is a history that people are not interested in. But what I’m hearing, what I’m seeing, what I’m experiencing, is such a widespread interest and astonishment and excitement to learn more.
Tara Roberts: [00:54:30] And it feels like mission accomplished. That’s really what we set out to do, was to just bring this history back into memory, because it deserves to be there. Here’s one other stat that I’d love to throw out there, because I think this also contextualizes it. I learned that there were 12,000 ships that brought Africans to the Americas, 12,000 ships that brought 12.5 million Africans to the Americas. What I realized when I was growing up, I couldn’t tell you the name of a single one of those ships, but I could tell you the name of the Mayflower. I could tell you all about the Titanic. Like I could tell you about all these other ships in history. But I couldn’t tell you the name of a single one of those. So, again, it just feels like there’s this chapter. It’s not even just one chapter. It’s chapters of history that are just missing. And this work, it’s not just black history. It’s not just even American history. This is global history. The transatlantic slave trade was one of the most monumental events in human history. Like it shaped the world that we have today. But it is one of the least studied, the least understood moments in our history. So this opportunity for us to look at it newly, to expand the historical record just feels so important.
Tara Roberts: [00:56:03] And this is the other thing that I’ve learned about this work, or this is the perspective that I’ve decided I want to bring to this work. The trade was also the thing, like more than anything else in history. And that’s because it lasted for 400 years. But it is the thing that connects the world of the Atlantic in a way that cannot be undone. Like Africa, Europe, North America, South America, the Caribbean. We are a part of each other. If you think about the transfer of cultures, of religions, of philosophies, of ideas, of goods, of people, of finances, like we are so deeply interwoven with each other. It’s like if we lean into that idea of that connection, could that potentially change how we think we’re responsible for each other? And then what changes? So this to me, it just feels like it is such important, profound memory work. And it’s profound healing work and it’s profound connecting work. I just feel like I can’t believe that scuba diving, like, entered my life and changed it in this way, and got this sci fi fantasy girl to be all in the past and enjoying being in the past. So it feels incredible.
Jonathan Fields: [00:57:37] Folks have heard me talk about this before. I’m always fascinated with the notion of sliding doors like the butterfly effect. And had you decided to skip that second floor like so many others had, you know, those years back and not seeing that one photo or just kind of blew past it and not really had it catch your eye. Like, I’m always amazed at how these random, seemingly random moments I’m going to use the word seemingly there, because who knows? Happened to so many of us at moments where we really, really need it and we’re attuned to it? I think sometimes because we’re suffering and that suffering leads to an openness, and there’s something that happens. There’s a momentary conversation or witnessing or experience or whatever it may be, and you’re open to it, and it just you allow it to move you in a way where you don’t just blow it off. You’re like, there’s something here. But like that catalyst. Yeah. Have you ever wondered what would have happened had you not gotten that ticket on that day or seen that photo?
Tara Roberts: [00:58:43] I wouldn’t be here talking to you. Probably. Yeah. I mean, it could have been a a divergent path that would have taken me somewhere else. I feel thankful and grateful for the feelings of discomfort that I had. Like, thank goodness I felt uncomfortable and so uncomfortable that I knew something had to change. And I wouldn’t say that anywhere around along the path that I could have imagined the next steps or the next steps. All I could do was take the step towards this feeling of lightness and this feeling of joy. And it feels like that is our task. Well, maybe that’s a little too much to to make it a task for us. But if there are folks who are listening and who are like, who are suffering, and we’re in a moment where there’s a lot of change happening, it’s a lot of difference, and a lot of people are being impacted in many, many ways. And some folks are like, what is next? And how do I move myself along? And I think I’ve just begun to believe that your body talks to you. I think the universe talks to you. It’s all of these little. But it’s it’s small things that it tells you. And if you follow that feeling of lightness, like that’s the guide. When I think about those divers, those black women, like, I felt such joy and such happiness. And I wanted to chase that feeling of joy and happiness. And when I wasn’t chasing them, I felt heavy and tired. It’s a tiny thing. It’s just like, oh, what makes me feel better? What else makes me feel better? What makes me feel better? And let me keep listening to that. And I know it can be really scary. Like, you know, people have mortgages and we have egos and we’ve got titles that we’re chasing. But sometimes you got to like trust and just follow.
Jonathan Fields: [01:00:52] You got to follow the quickening.
Tara Roberts: [01:00:55] Yeah.
Jonathan Fields: [01:00:56] This feels like a great place for us to come full circle as well. So in this container of Good Life Project., if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?
Tara Roberts: [01:01:04] Sometimes I say this during my book signings. I say never be afraid to follow your curiosity. So maybe that’s what it means to live a good life. It’s just to follow your curiosity, just to trust that. Follow it. There’s a way your soul is speaking to you by sparking your curiosity.
Jonathan Fields: [01:01:29] Thank you.
Tara Roberts: [01:01:30] Yeah.
Jonathan Fields: [01:01:33] Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, safe bet, you’ll also love the conversation we had with Natalie Baszile about the rich history of Black people and land and community and resilience and farming, especially in the United States. You can find a link to that episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and Me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by, Alejandro Ramirez, and Troy Young. Kristoffer Carter crafted our theme music, and of course, if you haven’t already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you’re still listening here. Do me a personal favor. A seven-second favor and share it with just one person. And if you want to share it with more, that’s awesome too. But just one person even then, invite them to talk with you about what you’ve both discovered. To reconnect and explore ideas that really matter. Because that’s how we all come alive together. Until next time, I’m Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.