Melanie White's "A Caribbean Coast Feeling" (Small Axe, 2023) explores the visual cultural production of three twentieth-century Black Caribbean Central American women painters: June Beer and Judith Kain, both from the Miskitu Coast, and Iris Abrahams, from San Andrés and Providencia. Specifically, it contextualizes these artists’ landscape portraiture against the historical backdrops of colonialism, territorial dispossession, and autonomous struggle in the isthmus. Understanding the political and the cultural as inextricably intertwined, this essay reads their place-based visual art as a critical form of anticolonial critique and social organizing in a region that remains marginalized in the historiography and scholarship on Latin America and the Caribbean and radical Black diasporic politics.
Lowell Gudmundson's "Africanos y afrodescendientes en Centroamérica" (Nuevo mundo, mundos nuevos, 2010) analyzes novel forms of researching Afro-Central American history during the 19th and 20th centuries. Comments on the sources, strategies and results of recent studies that recover the history of African-descent populations traditionally identified with the mestizo or ladino majorities and not only those of the Atlantic coast commonly recognized as Afro-Americans. Top of page
Kent Russell Lohse's "Africans and Their Descendants in Colonial Costa Rica, 1600–1750" (PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 2005) explores the lives of enslaved Africans in one of the Spanish Empire’s smallest and most isolated colonies. Unlike plantation societies, colonial Costa Rica received only sporadic shipments of enslaved Africans, resulting in a small, diverse, and dispersed African population. Drawing on Atlantic slave trade patterns and local social dynamics, the study examines how ethnic origins, gender, labor roles, and social relationships shaped the experiences of Africans and their descendants. It argues that assimilation into a broader creole culture, rather than the maintenance of distinct African or Black identities, defined the trajectory of Afro-descendant life in colonial Costa Rica.
The Afro-Antillean Museum of Panama, located in a former Methodist church in Panama City, is dedicated to preserving the history, culture, and contributions of Afro-Caribbean communities in Panama. The museum focuses especially on the thousands of workers from the English-speaking Caribbean who migrated to build the Panama Canal and railroad. Through historical artifacts, photographs, and personal narratives, the museum documents the cultural legacy, struggles, and everyday lives of Afro-Antilleans, highlighting their vital role in shaping Panamanian society. It remains a key space for education, cultural pride, and historical recognition.
Sarah England's Afro-Central Americans in New York City: Garifuna Tales of Transnational Movements in Racialized Space (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006) offers an in-depth ethnographic study of the Garifuna, a Black Indigenous community with roots in St. Vincent and Central America, as they navigate life between coastal Honduran villages and New York City. Based on two years of fieldwork, the book examines how transnational migration shapes family, community, and grassroots activism, and how Garifuna identity—at the intersection of Blackness, Indigeneity, and Latinidad—complicates their relationship with U.S. and Honduran societies and international rights organizations.
An initiative dedicated to empowering Afro-descendant communities in Costa Rica through the power of knowledge and technology. Rooted in Afrocentricity, this initiative bridges the information gap by making legal rights, treaties, and decrees accessible, fostering community unity, and equipping individuals with the resources needed to navigate societal and governmental structures with confidence.
Afrodescendientes en el Istmo de Panamá 1501–2012 (Editora Sibauste, S.A., 2012) by Melva Lowe de Goodin is a comprehensive historical account of the presence, struggles, and contributions of Afrodescendant peoples in Panama from the colonial period through 2012. It traces key events including the transatlantic slave trade, maroon resistance, the abolition of slavery, Afro-Antillean migration, and the labor histories surrounding the construction of the railroad and canal. The book also examines systemic segregation, the role of Afro-Panamanian women, and governmental attitudes toward Black communities in the republican and contemporary eras. Drawing on historical memory and political critique, it highlights cultural figures, resistance movements, and ongoing demands for racial justice and national inclusion.
A community association from Nicaragua working to promote the comprehensive development of the Garifuna communities of Nicaragua, from the perspective of human rights, seeking unity in diversity in all our actions.
AfroLatinx Travel, co-founded by Dash Harris and Javier Wallace, offers group trips and educational experiences that center Black history, legacy, spirituality, and contemporary life throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, and Central America. Operating under the motto Travel Diasporadically, the project challenges conventional tourism by foregrounding Afro-descendant perspectives and lived experiences. Through curated itineraries, community engagement, and historical education, AfroLatinx Travel fosters deeper understanding of the African diaspora’s enduring presence and cultural contributions across the region.
AfroResistance is a human rights organization, executive directed by Janvieve Williams Comrie, that has been educating and organizing for racial justice, democracy, and human rights across the Americas since 2014. Rooted in the leadership of Black women and girls from Latin America and the Caribbean, the organization carries out its mission through advocacy, international solidarity, and capacity building. AfroResistance produces analysis, data, and reports that center the lived experiences of Black women and girls in the region, while also working to build an intentional, transnational political movement for social justice and human rights. Through popular education on race, gender, and migration, the organization empowers Afro-descendant communities to act as informed leaders and decision-makers. AfroResistance’s work ensures that Black women and girls are not only visible, but are leading efforts toward lasting liberation and equality throughout the hemisphere.
