The Black Central Americas (BCA) Project is a digital public humanities initiative dedicated to amplifying the histories, cultures, thought, and politics of Black Central American communities. More than just a platform, BCA is a meeting ground—a space where histories are traced, knowledge is exchanged, and connections are forged across geographies and generations. We are committed to building a central hub and resource that constellates the intellectual, cultural, and activist networks shaping Black Central American life, past and present. We embrace the digital as a space of gathering, a tool for collective world-building, and a bridge between scholars, artists, activists, and independent researchers invested in Black Central American Studies.
Melanie Y. White
Co-founder/co-coordinator
Dr. Melanie Y. White is a Black Studies scholar and cultural historian of Caribbean Central America whose work explores how Black and Afro-Indigenous communities in the region confront racialized and gendered colonial violence through political organizing, artistic expression, and everyday practices of survival. For over a decade, her research has centered on the region’s histories of resistance and cultural production, tracing how Black Central Americans have forged pathways of sovereignty and belonging across shifting colonial and national landscapes. As co-founder and co-coordinator of The Black Central Americas Project, she seeks to create a digital space of diasporic connection—one that not only amplifies the histories, cultures, and intellectual traditions of Black Central America but also nurtures cross-border dialogue and collective memory.
Nicole D. Ramsey
Co-founder/co-coordinator
Dr. Nicole D. Ramsey is an interdisciplinary Black cultural studies scholar specializing in the intersections of race, gender, nation, and diaspora in Central America and the Caribbean. She is an Assistant Professor of Latina/o Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research critically examines how Black Belizeans, including Creoles and Garinagu, navigate identity, belonging, and citizenship through national commemoration, digital spaces, migration, and tourism. She has published in Callaloo and Small Axe. As a community cultural archivist engaged in public scholarship and community-centered work, she works to collect and preserve oral histories of Caribbean and Black Central American populations in Los Angeles and California more broadly.
