SWP was launched in 2008 as the “African Slave Wrecks and Diaspora Heritage Routes Project,” as a collaboration coordinated by The George Washington University, with its two co-founding partners, the United States National Park Service-Submerged Resources Center and IZIKO Museums of South Africa. In 2011, Diving With a Purpose and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) joined the project, which was renamed the Slave Wrecks Project (SWP) in 2015.