Pueblo Afrodescendiente de Guayaquil: Autodeterminación y Libre Determinación

ABSTRACT (INGLES) (*)César Miguel Andrade-MartínezIntroduction Since the beginning of the 18th century, the fight for freedom, justice, equality and human rights of Afro-Ecuadorians took shape in Latin America through the social organizations to which they belonged, the same ones that emerged as fundamental pillars among ethnic groups. In Ecuador, Afro-descendants challenged the institutionality of slavery, becoming agents of change to achieve their emancipation and human dignity through armed resistance, legal dispute, and political activism (Merizalde et al., 2016). From the sixties to the eighties of the 20th century, the organizational process of Afro-Ecuadorians began to take shape thanks to the continental movements of African descent, which fought for the construction of a society free of racism and discrimination where citizens enjoy full rights under conditions of equality (Antón Sánchez, 2011).Tamara Merizalde et al. (2016) point out that one of the feats of vindication of the Afro-Ecuadorian people occurred in 1970 when the Afro-Ecuadorian Studies Center CEA, founded by young people of the time, worked on “the rescue and dissemination of the historical memory of the Afro-Ecuadorian people, raising awareness about the situation of marginalization and poverty in which he found himself and the fight against discrimination and racism” (p. 45); Since then, protests and demonstrations have emerged as a mechanism for social insertion among the questions of the political class and in defense of the rights of people of African descent.