Reframing Maritime History Across the Pacific
Explore Take Me to the Water: Histories of the Black Pacific, now open aboard the historic ferryboat Berkeley and included with general admission.
About the Exhibit
Take Me to the Water: Histories of the Black Pacific explores the deep and often overlooked relationships between Black communities and the Pacific Ocean. Spanning centuries of maritime movement, labor, exploration, and cultural exchange, the exhibit highlights the lives and contributions of Black mariners whose stories helped shape the Pacific world.
Visitors are invited to discover the experiences of sailors, whalers, fishers, waterfront workers, explorers, soldiers, surfers, swimmers, and scholars whose connections to the ocean expanded far beyond traditional narratives of maritime history.
Through immersive storytelling, historical interpretation, and contemporary scholarship, the exhibit offers a broader and more inclusive understanding of the Pacific—revealing how identity, labor, migration, resilience, and culture moved across oceans and generations.
What You’ll Discover
- Stories of Black mariners across the Pacific world
- The role of Black sailors in maritime industries from the 16th through the 20th century
- Connections between maritime labor, exploration, and coastal communities
- The experiences of whalers, commercial mariners, fishers, surfers, swimmers, explorers, soldiers, and sailors
The Black Pacific Story
From the 16th through the 20th century, Black mariners were part of the movement of people, knowledge, labor, and culture throughout the Pacific. They served aboard merchant ships, whalers, naval vessels, and fishing boats, and contributed to the growth of maritime industries and coastal communities across the region.
Their stories reveal a deeper and more complete picture of the Pacific world—one shaped not only by trade and exploration, but also by resilience, skill, and human connection across oceans and generations.
In Partnership with UC San Diego
Developed in partnership with UC San Diego curator Dr. Caroline Collins, Take Me to the Water: Histories of the Black Pacific brings together research, storytelling, and maritime history to explore Black relationships with the Pacific Ocean and the broader maritime world.
The exhibit invites visitors to reconsider familiar narratives of exploration, labor, and seafaring through stories that have too often remained outside traditional maritime histories.
Plan Your Visit
Take Me to the Water: Histories of the Black Pacific is included with general admission to the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Visitors may experience the exhibit as part of their self-guided visit while exploring the Museum’s historic ships, galleries, and waterfront.
