Keely Adler

Dressed in a purple and turquoise seashell bra and an iridescent green tail, the professional mermaid Carrie Wata swam through a hula hoop that a group of children held underwater in a pool at a birthday party outside of Atlanta, Georgia.⁠ ⁠ The birthday girl was astonished to see that Wata was a Black mermaid. “You look like me,” Wata recalled the girl saying.⁠ ⁠ Professional mermaiding, an occupation that began more than a century ago with the likes of the Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman, has gained traction in recent years.⁠ ⁠ While there are no official records on the number of professional mermaids in the industry, Fast Company estimated that there were about 1,000 in the US in 2015.⁠ ⁠ Wata’s real name is Melanie Carrie Schneider, but she came up with her mermaid name as part of her “mersona”. She is part of a new wave of Black mermaids who have taken up the activity as a hobby or profession.⁠ ⁠ “Back in the day, we didn’t have the right to even play mermaid in pools, we didn’t have that privilege,” said Wata, whose Miami-based, aquatic-themed company, Afro Mermaid, sells clothing and accessories and hosts mermaid events. “But when you look at history, Africans were the very first water people.”⁠ ⁠ Follow the link in bio for the full story.⁠ ⁠ Photographs: Freckled Fox Photography, Submerge Underwater, Wayne C Smith Iii/Courtesy of Jalondra A Davis @jalondradavis, Courtesy of Natasha Gumbs/Clover Jené, @carrie_wata, @societyoffatmermaids