Maritime Museum Of San Diego Partners With UCSD Curator For Take Me To The Water: Histories Of The Black Pacific Educational Program and Exhibit
Plan includes Spring 2025 Sailing Education and Delayed Exhibit Opening Memorial Day Weekend 2026
(SAN DIEGO, CA) – Maritime Museum of San Diego, the 501c3 non-profit waterfront Museum with a mission to serve as the community memory of our seafaring experience by collecting, preserving, and presenting our rich maritime heritage and historic connections with the Pacific world, was among a select group of institutions recently chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to receive large-scale funding for planned exhibitions. In August 2024, the NEH awarded the Maritime Museum of San Diego a Public Humanities Implementation Grant to support implementation and execution of a new interactive exhibition created and curated by Dr. Caroline Collins (Assistant Professor of Social and Spatial Justice, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, UC San Diego) exploring maritime practices of the African diaspora in what is now the U.S. Pacific. Take Me to the Water: Histories of the Black Pacific was scheduled to open at the Maritime Museum of San Diego in August 2025. In April 2025, the federal government terminated over 1,200 NEH grants, including the Maritime Museum’s Implementation Grant for Take Me to the Water.
According to the Maritime Museum of San Diego’s new President and CEO, Christina Connett Brophy, Ph.D., “The Maritime Museum of San Diego is confident we will successfully secure the support of private and corporate sponsors to offset NEH grant termination. We are therefore moving forward with the collaboration with UC San Diego and Dr. Caroline Collins with the launch of the exhibit’s Spring 2025 Maritime Adventure Academy designed for middle and high school participants, undergraduate assistants, taught by trained professional instructors. The 5-week program includes sailing instruction, exposure to maritime design skills, and a culturally relevant maritime history curriculum.” The sailing academy launched in April 2025 with a pilot cohort of UC San Diego students. Dr. Brophy adds, “The Take Me to the Water: Histories of the Black Pacific exhibit has been postponed to open next year during the 2026 Memorial Day Weekend as we pursue alternate funding opportunities to support this essential story of our region’s histories.” Entry will be free with purchase of museum general admission.
The San Diego region helped inspire Take Me to the Water: Histories of the Black Pacific. Its curator and project director, San Diego native Dr. Caroline Collins, charts her interest in Black people’s relationships with water and watercraft to a childhood that included regular visits to Southern California beaches. Dr. Collins is an Assistant Professor of Social and Spatial Justice in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego, where she is also affiliated with the Democracy Lab, the Design Lab, the Indigenous Futures Institute, and The Scripps Center for Marine Archeology. She is also a co-founder of Black Like Water, an interdisciplinary research collective at UCSD that highlights Black relationships to the natural world.
This exhibit reveals the deep and historic connection between people of African descent and the Pacific Ocean. White seafarers disproportionately populate most accounts of the United States’ maritime enterprises. Yet, from the 16th to the 20th century, Black whalers, commercial mariners, fishers, explorers, soldiers, and sailors traveled along the Pacific Coast and traversed the high seas. The stories of these mariners, their impact in shaping the American Pacific, and their legacy in the context of development of society and identity, are all explored in this ground-breaking exhibit. Plans also call for the educational program providing young aspiring mariners of color sailing and maritime skills-building courses to continue next year.
Dr. Collins explains, “Through integrating stories of Black seafarers into the cultural narratives that define early maritime activity, including the sociocultural, economic, and political import of those activities on the Pacific region of the United States, Take Me to the Water: Histories of the Black Pacific represents a unique vehicle for considering the ongoing quest for a more just, inclusive, and sustainable society. The immersive experience offers visitors the opportunity to re-imagine Black people’s relationships with water and watercraft. In doing so, the public will be exposed to an important yet obscured history, while expanding their understanding of Black origins in America beyond the slave ship.”
Take Me to the Water: Histories of the Black Pacific extends our understanding of the origins of Black people in America, and the essential nature of the roles they played in the maritime enterprise and American genesis. Organizations wishing to learn more about the collaboration and support or sponsor the program may contact Membership Manager Kate O’Neill at (619) 234-9153 x128 or email kate.oneill@sdmaritime.org.
Take Me to the Water: Histories of the Black Pacific also features a smaller-scale traveling banner exhibit. This version was recently on display at the Central Library in downtown San Diego. For more information on this smaller version of the show, visit https://exhibitenvoy.org/exhibits/take-me-to-the-water/.
