Black Mariners of the Black Pacific: Planning the Exhibition

FAIN: GE-287510-22

Maritime Museum Association of San Diego (San Diego, CA 92101-3309)
Caroline Collins (Project Director: January 2022 to present)

Planning for a traveling exhibition exploring the historical role of Black mariners along the Pacific coast and islands from the sixteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. 

The Maritime Museum of San Diego, in partnership with Dr. Caroline Collins, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California San Diego, and a variety of relevant scholars, is requesting funds to engage in planning for the public humanities project Black Mariners of the Black Pacific. This new project examines 16th century to mid-20th century maritime practices of people of African descent including whalers, commercial mariners, fisherfolk, explorers, soldiers, and sailors who traveled to and settled along the Pacific Coast of what is now the United States. Black Mariners of the Black Pacific will employ formats including a traveling exhibit, small vessel build, and short documentary film in the service of investigating a less explored oceanography -- the Pacific Ocean -- to extend 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.