The idyllic waters of the Chesapeake Bay.
They looked exactly like this in the 1600s.
That's when the first African Americans
saw this bountiful body of water.
And as we open the book of the base history,
their contributions leap off the pages.
Waterman and boatbuilders.
Cokes and oyster harvesters.
Turning the page to the present day.
It's the Shirley B3, the head boat
of the oldest living black
captain on the Bay today,
84 year old Montreux, right?
I started coming out with my dad when I was.
Five going on six his son,
63 year old Captain Lamont Wright
is the next chapter and he's
hoping to bait some hooks
to preserve a dying legacy
and endangered species.
Minorities in aquaculture
years ago. That was so many black captains.
That's all the blacks did.
If they wanted to make some money now.
This is no blacks hardly involved in it,
so my goal is to make this a living legacy.
For the Black Waterman in the
black captains of the Chesapeake.
The Black Waterman of the
Chesapeake Bay has the same kind
of impact as the Tuskegee Airmen.
If they have the same kind of
impact as a Buffalo soldier.
But their story is just beginning to be told.
And that story continues with the
third generation of the family
you're meeting in this story.
I was five years old.
I started on my Gran Father,
Montreux rights boat,
27 year old Cedric Cooper says
it's his grandfathers work ethic
that's driven him to his destiny.
This is something that I feel that I have
no other choice but to get into
because he's worked too hard.
I want my son to go ahead and take over
and and and and enjoy and have a good
way of life if somebody don't step up.
And do something. Right now. It's over.
This isn't just something that
we should like talk about.
We need to be like active
about our engagement.
Imani Black has spent the past five
years as a commercial oyster farmer. In
that time, she says, not encountering
one other woman of color. I
come from a 200 year old long line
of Waterman and skipped a few
generations and came back to me.
I was really moved by the
conversations of diversity and
inclusion in marine sciences.
All the boat captains are over the age of 60,
and so right there. That is,
a generation that is just slowly
and slowly fading away with no real
younger people coming up behind them.
To me it's it's alarming,
and so that's why you know,
I think that miners and awkward
culture came at a perfect time
and money is non profit.
Mihn minorities in aquaculture
and quite poetically minorities in
aquaculture RMI, a missing in action.
Her goal to enlist them to
entice them back to the Bay. It's
not just about internships and mentorships,
but it's about career development skills.
It's really giving people the tools
to create a viable and sustainable
career on their own terms.
In reality, it's really just paying homage
to all the people that came before me.
All the people that I still know,
like great captains that are
still out here doing doing great
things on the Chesapeake Bay where
African Americans are and
amphibious body of people.
Vince Leggett wrote the book.
On black contributions to the Chesapeake,
literally as a historian,
a black man and a champion of the Bay,
what we've tried to do is preserve
the history and the heritage of the
Bay to show that we weren't just
crab pickers and oyster Shuckers,
but owners will see food processing plants.
Owners of boats aren't sailmakers.
Only a five star restaurants,
he's rooting for the rights he's
pulling for Omani to carry on
a proud tradition of blacks on
the Bay for another 400 years.
And beyond. On the Chesapeake Bay.
Caitlin McGrath W USA 9.