On July 25, 2023, on a thick, humid afternoon in Panama City, a gathering of around two dozen Black women, spanning various age groups, assembled in a public park. Adorned with balloons and placards advocating for human rights, they congregated among monuments commemorating the country’s governing elite. Some arrived on their journeys home from work, others from school. Under the banner of the International Day of Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean, and Diaspora Women, organizations had come together to discuss the layered discrimination impacting the lives of Afro-Panamanian women, touching on issues from sexism and gendered violence to equitable socio-economic opportunities for Afro-Panamanian women and youth. Attendees ranged from seasoned organizers in their 70s to young children. The youngest, just seven months old, clung on the hip of her mother, Lamar Bailey Karamanites, a longtime organizer whose own mother was an activist in the leftist student movement of the 1970s and 1980s known as GUAYCUCHO-NIR, which linked race and class in its struggle for revolutionary ideals.
The gathering was hosted by well-established collectives: Voces de Mujeres Afropanameñas (VOMAP), founded in 2015; Foro Afropanameño (FORO), founded in 2002; Sociedad de Amigos del Museo Afroantillano de Panamá (SAMAAP), founded in 1981; La Red de Mujeres Afro (La RED), founded in 1992; and La Red de Jóvenes Afropanameños (RJA), first established in 2011 and then re-initiated in 2016. More recently formed Afro-feminist youth collectives like Hijas de Alkebulan and Odon Rasonero (Rebels With A Cause), both founded in 2022, also participated, underscoring the role of intergenerational engagement in passing on the Afro-Panamanian struggle for civil and human rights.
Intergenerational coalition building has long been an instrument of knowledge production both in Panama and in the diaspora. Black organizing in Panama evolved through shifting political tides, with older generations, especially those of West Indian descent, mobilizing around race and ethnicity in the 1940s and 50s to secure citizenship and political inclusion. By the 1970s, younger activists—often university-based and ideologically leftist—revived racial mobilization while integrating class-based analysis, forging broader alliances with popular movements. These efforts were further supported by the Afro-Panamanian diaspora, especially in Brooklyn, where transnational solidarity added political momentum. As Bailey Karamañités put it, “Without youth participation, no movement or space can have continuity. It’s that simple: if there are no young people, the movement dies... Without young people, the movement only contains one perspective, only speaks to one point of view, and may not be updating to new narratives and ways of doing things.”
At the same time, young Afro-Panamanian activists are also re-evaluating and re-fashioning inherited strategies of movement-building. Rejecting respectability politics, colonial legacies, and exclusionary practices within their own communities, they are carving out new spaces for protest, art, digital organizing, and institution-building.
As members of the different organizations gathered on the park greenery and gave their statements, the women shouted “DOWN WITH THE PATRIARCHY” and “DOWN WITH THE MINE.” The latter slogan would soon be echoed in nation-wide protests that, later in 2023, won a historical court ruling to shut down Cobre Panamá, an open-pit copper mine operated by the Canadian company First Quantum Minerals. Since then, however, protests have continued against a government that appears poised to reactivate the mine, now with discussions of a potential joint venture. For the Afro-Panamanian youth organizers at the event, environmental racism is a core issue.
Yannia Visuetti, the 27-year-old founder of Odon Rasonero who was present at the July 25 gathering, expressed as much in a 2024 joint statement with the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) to the United Nations, arguing that “abusive practices” like the mining agreement that sparked the massive 2023 protests “replicate colonial practices of territorial exploitation.” This exploitation follows a pattern across Latin America, she said, “where business interests are above human rights.” As the historian Kaysha Corinealdi has noted, this kind of internationalist Black diasporic framework, connecting local campaigns within Panama to movements in other parts of the world, is not uncommon in Afro-Panamanian activist spaces.
Afro-Panamanian youth organizers recognize the disproportionate impact of environmental degradation and harmful policies on their communities, especially in coastal areas and resource-rich territories. Their organizing helps ensure that Afrodescendant voices are no longer peripheral in policy debates but central to imagining sustainable futures rooted in equity and self-determination. Increased organization has helped young activists assert this voice. Stephanie Murillo, 36, Emmy-winning producer of the 2019 documentary AfroLatinos and former president of RJA, said the creation of RJA brought more strength and impact to individual youth groups. “While various groups of different ages actively participated in the Afro-Panamanian social movement, the youth were scattered, acting individually in their respective community or provincial organizations,” she explained. “The network’s creation became essential to enhance our capacity for advocacy and the fight for our rights.” The current median age in Panama is 30 years old, making youth civic and political participation especially urgent.
Diversifying The Black Panamanian Experience
As a member of La Red de Jovenes Afropanameños (RJA) from its re-initiation in 2016 until 2020, I have seen many young activists like Visuetti take on leadership positions within and outside Panama in efforts to address gender, class, and racial inequalities. Current RJA president Krystel Quintero, 28, for example, who is also a member of VOCES, has been working on back-to-school campaigns focused on preventing afro hair discrimination in schools. In March 2021, a 7-year-old Afro-Panamanian boy was reprimanded by his school for wearing his natural afro hair during virtual classes, labeling it “inappropriate.” The incident sparked social media backlash under the hashtag #MiCabelloEsAdecuado and prompted national dialogue on racial discrimination in schools. RJA supported the “Mi Cabello es Adecuado” campaign, condemning school policies that target afro hairstyles as violations of human rights and anti-discrimination laws. Quintero and RJA have since created a mini-guide to inform parents what to do in these cases. They are also working on a guide against discrimination in the workplace.
RJA organizes events, panels, and conferences to educate and empower Afro-Panamanian youth. The organization also participates in public policy planning and political and electoral debates, in addition to international youth conferences. Alongside Afro-Panamanian organizations Colectivo Espavé and VOCES, and with support from the Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights, RJA was at the forefront of the “Soy Afro y Cuento” campaign that encouraged Afrodescendants to self-identify in the 2020 census (postponed until 2023 due to the Covid-19 pandemic). Highlighting diverse Afro-Panamanian identities, the campaign sought to improve representation and inclusion in national data and public policies.
During the campaign, RJA led public events throughout the capital and interior provinces to raise awareness about the importance of selecting the Afrodescendant variable. By organizing public events across both urban and rural areas, RJA not only raised public knowledge about the presence of the newly added Afrodescendant census variable, but also empowered individuals to name themselves in a system that had long rendered them invisible. Their involvement shows that youth organizers are deeply invested in shaping a future where racial identity is acknowledged and honored, reflecting a forward-looking commitment to ensuring future generations inherit the tools, language, and political visibility necessary to continue building equity and collective action.
As a result, census data showed a rise in self-identified Afrodescendants from 9.2 percent in 2010 to 32.8 percent in 2023. Before 2010, the last time Panama collected racial data on the census was in 1940; its removal sought to promote a narrative of a melting pot nation. The jump in self-identification between 2010 and 2023 was only possible through intergenerational collaboration and a youth movement willing to communicate with the next generation.
Moving the Generational Line Forward
Nyasha Warren joined the Afro-Panamanian organization SAMAAP—one of the oldest in Panama at more than four decades old—when she was 17. “Youth are progressive and value the work of the elders, [they] value the path they made while at the same time doing things their way,” said Warren, who is now coordinator of research and documentation at the Museo del Canal Interoceánico de Panamá. She points out that today’s elder activists were once considered progressive, even radical in their time.
In the 1960s and 1970s, for example, youth movements fought for access to higher education and opportunities for Black students while resisting the 1968-1981 military dictatorship of Omar Torrijos Herrera. As 72-year-old activist and former diplomat Humberto K. Brown recalled, “The Torrijos process defined us… We were probably the first generation that participated from a radical perspective.” Torrijos sought to legitimize his military regime by seeking support from all social groups for his populist-nationalist project. But the youth had their own ideas. As Brown explained, he was part of a generation that wanted “a Panama that was not ruled by the oligarchies—a Panama that recognized the diversity and the complexity of who we are.”
One of Brown’s contemporaries, scholar and activist George Priestley, predicted in 2008 that the Black movement would not grow if it did not address the effects of neoliberal policies on the country’s impoverished and Afrodescendant populations. He warned that these agendas had to be tackled independent of political parties in order to preserve the movement’s autonomy, credibility, and effectiveness. A February 2025 online survey I conducted found a similar sentiment among a sample of Afro-Panamanian young people. In response to the survey, 20 millennial and Gen Z Afro-Panamanian organizers expressed gratitude for the advancements of their elders, like Melva Lowe de Goodin, George Maloney, and Agatha Williams, whose extensive bodies of work span literature, film, education, and activism. Those surveyed nevertheless called for a shift from identity-based lobbying and symbolic inclusion to addressing systemic poverty and inequality, LGBTQIA+ discrimination, unemployment, racial profiling, and access to sexual education and abortion, as well as avoiding alliances with corrupt political parties.
Most of the survey respondents run social projects with local and national impact. Former La RED member Andres Madrid, 29, and Cesar Barahona, 27, for example, founded Asociación Deportiva Curundú (ADC) in 2014, a grassroots social organization based in the predominantly Black and Embera Indigenous Curundú district of Panama City. ADC uses sports and education to combat adverse outcomes for youth such as violence, school dropout, and drug use. Sielka Sanchez, 33, founder of the natural hair movement Natural Yansi, drew from her personal experience of paying high costs for healthcare to tackle questions about Afro-Panamanian women’s health and if and how they can afford appropriate care. A survey she created for her own inquiries has now become a national clinical observational medical research project titled From Silence to Action: Invisible Voices in the Health System, carried out with her co-investigator and fellow RJA member, registered nurse Mibzar Powell.
Online, social media offers a means for Afro-Panamian youth to educate, raise awareness, and connect with other organizers, influencers, content creators, and educators in other Latin American countries. The anti-racist content creator Cruelatime, for example, uses her platform of over half a million followers to denounce racism in Panama. She also analyzes public opinion with her on-the-street interviews about abortion, marriage equality, and other topics.
Genesis Lore, known to her social media followers as Cruella, is the founder of her own media platform FLINTIN and an alumna of Hijas de Alkebulan, a political and anti-racist training program for and by Black women. Through identity and historical memory workshops and mentorship, Hijas supports young women to become leaders in community building and social justice work, equipping them with the tools to form their own social projects. Hijas facilitator and VOCES member Ninna Ottey, 31, noted that in today’s youth organizations “there is more unity and a sense of community, less individualism,” echoing Murillo’s observations on the evolving nature of collective youth action in recent years. Such spaces, she recalled from her own experience, have “reaffirmed my identity as a Black person, Afro-Panamanian, socially and politically.” Through her digital platform Memoria Digital Afro, which curates and compiles works by Afrodescendants across the Americas, she looks to continue and extend this work of education and reaffirmation.
Afro-Panamanian youth organizers, activists, and creators, from members of RAJ to VOCES, are advancing a movement-building praxis that centers intersectionality, recognizing that struggles against anti-Blackness must also contend with the overlapping realities of gender, class, sexuality, health, and environmental racism. Their activism reflects a nuanced understanding of identity and power, expanding the contours of liberation to be more inclusive and structurally transformative.
Dash Harris is a multimedia producer, filmmaker and co-founder of AfroLatinx Travel. She documents Afro-descendant histories and futures in the Americas, exploring identity, resistance, and memory through storytelling, tours, workshop facilitation, and public scholarship rooted in Black liberation and diasporic connectivity.