An influential underwater archaeologist will kick off Black History Month at The Mariners’ Museum and Park in Newport News this week when Kamau Sadiki of Diving With A Purpose appears as the guest speaker in the first Evening Lecture of 2023 at 7 o’clock tonight, Thursday, Feb. 2.

Sadiki is a lead instructor and board member of DWP, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to document and preserve the stories of Transatlantic Slave Trade ships. Sadiki was among the first to identify and explore the wreck of Clotilda—the last known slave ship to the United States and central to Netflix’s documentary “Descendant.” On Feb. 2, Sadiki will share stories of ancestral memory, connectivity, resistance, and the resilience of the human spirit through the wrecks of the slave ships, São José Paquete de Africa and Clotilda, of the 18th and 19th centuries.

In addition to Sadiki’s lecture, the museum will offer other programs and lectures in February that honor Black people, history, and cult...