By founding the first African American scuba club, Albert 'Doc' Jones opened the door for Black divers to explore the ocean—and their own history—in new ways
You won’t find a better diving partner than Albert José Jones, says his colleague Jay Haigler, who describes Jones as “scuba fit”—aerobically agile, in full command of the muscles in his body as it cleaves the currents of the ocean.
“What does the future look like because of Doc Jones?” Haigler asks. “It looks more representative of the world we live in. It looks like a place where any young Black girl or boy who is curious about the sea and curious about their history can call themselves an explorer. It lets them know they have just as much of a chance to view the remarkable world beneath the surface of the ocean.”Jones, a Purple Heart recipient and a marine biologist, is surprisingly modest about his influence.
He created Underwater Adventure Seekers for a purely pragmatic reason. Existing diving clubs in the 1950s and 60s simply didn’t allow African Americans to join, and the costs associated with scuba diving often deterred people curious about the sport. Jones, having achieved his certification and become deeply immersed in his own passion for diving, says he had no choice but to try and create equal access.
“But when I walked into a room and saw 70 people who looked like me, and all of them loved diving as much as I did, I was like, ‘Okay, game on,’” Haigler recalls. “I knew right then that this was more than just a sport for me.”By making scuba diving accessible for African Americans, Jones made it possible to reframe the narrative about the transport of Africans to the Americas.
In fact, when Haigler contacted Ayana Flewellen, co-founder of the Society of Black Archaeologists in 2012, the collaboration seemed pre-destined. Less than one percent of all archaeologists worldwide are African American, Flewellen says, and the opportunity to meld the science with the lost history of African Americans was too good to ignore.
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