What is your earliest memory of water?
What did your family tell you about the ocean?
For four hundred years, Black people have had a complicated relationship with water. This project collects the stories — fear, ease, family memory, first times, warnings passed down through generations. Your story is evidence. Your story is history. Your story matters.
The interview takes about ten minutes. It asks one question at a time and adapts to your answers — no question you can't skip, no wrong answer, no minimum length.
The archive interview takes about ten minutes. It adapts to your answers — if you didn't grow up near water, it won't ask you about swimming lessons. If you prefer not to answer something, you can skip it. Nothing is required except honesty.
Most people answer 12–16 questions. Some answer more. Some answer four and that's enough.
Start Sharing Your StoryFrom submissions collected across the diaspora — in three languages, from seven countries — these are the patterns the archive is finding. The archive is still growing. The findings are preliminary. But the patterns are consistent.
Use whatever feels most natural. Every format is welcome in the archive.