Diving With a Purpose
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
| Formation | 2005 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Kenneth Stewart, Brenda Lanzendorf |
| Type | Nonprofit |
| Purpose | Maritime archaeology, focused on research of the Atlantic slave trade |
| Location |
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| Website | divingwithapurpose |
Diving With a Purpose (DWP) is an American non-profit organization aimed at locating and documenting shipwrecks, predominantly those related to the Atlantic slave trade.[1][2][3][4]
Diving With a Purpose was founded in 2005 by Kenneth Stewart (born 1944/45),[5] a retired copier repairman[6] with the Tennessee Aquatic Project and the National Association of Black Scuba Divers, and Brenda Lanzendorf (1958–2008),[7] a maritime archaeologist at Biscayne National Park.[2] 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,[1] although a likely candidate has since been discovered.[8][9]
DWP was featured in 2020 television documentary series Enslaved, featuring DWP member Kramer Wimberley,[10] starring and produced by Samuel L. Jackson.[11] It is also the subject of a 2021 documentary titled Lessons from the Water: Diving with a Purpose by filmmaker Charles Todd.[12]
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,[1][13] with the stated aim of training divers to become "able to assist in the historical documentation and preservation of artifacts and wreck sites".[14] An offshoot program directed at a younger audience entitled Youth Diving With a Purpose (YDWP) was introduced in 2011.[1][15]
The group has been involved with the discovery or documentation of numerous[a] shipwrecks, including the São José Paquete Africa[17][18] and the Clotilda.[1][19] Other activities of the organization have included the location and mapping of plane wrecks related to the Tuskegee Airmen in the Great Lakes.[20][21] A memorial site in Port Huron, Michigan, was constructed in 2021.[22][23]
Diving With a Purpose has worked or is working with groups and federal agencies including NOAA,[24] the National Park Service (NPS),[25][26] the Society of Black Archaeologists,[27][28] and the Slave Wrecks Project, a collaboration between DWP, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, the NPS, George Washington University, Iziko South African Museum, and the South African Heritage Resources Agency.[29]