Across the world, a group of black scuba divers are searching for lost shipwrecks of the transatlantic slave trade.

I wasn't sure what it was, but I knew it was something unique because of the shape.

It was encrusted. It felt eerie.

It was like diving on a grave site.

Ships that carried untold millions of captive Africans

across the ocean to the Americas.

Every coast of the Atlantic

was in some way involved or impacted by the slave trade. An estimated 1.8 million people

perished during the voyage known as the Middle Passage. Speak their names. Speak the names. I'm Tara Roberts,

a National Geographic Explorer, a writer, and now a podcaster.

And in this six-part series, you'll hear how I dropped everything to join these divers and help tell their stories.

How I followed them to Mozambique, South Africa, Senegal, Costa Rica, and around the U.S.

Cute little father.

All right, well, I spoke to about a hundred scuba divers,

maritime archaeologists, historians, and descendants of those trafficked on the ships.

Two of the enslaved Africans brought over on the slave militia.

I spent two years on the journey of a lifetime.

The ocean is a very large.

It's a very large place.

And I found myself grappling with one core question.

As a black American woman,

how can finding this history help me find belonging?

...