On May 30 Panama celebrated the second anniversary of Black Ethnicity Day. During the month of May civic organizations held seminars and cultural activities while schools assigned investigative projects on black history of the life of the isthmus. The Coordinating Commission for Black Ethnicity, headed by its founder and president, Claral Richards, sponsored and promoted many of the events leading up to May 30, the special day set aside for recognition of Panama’s black community.

Among the many activities held around the isthmus, the main event was Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro’s presentation of the key to the city to former Olympian cyclist Oscar Willis Layne. Layne won several honors, including gold medals, for his participation in the Caribbean, Central American and Pan-American games in Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, Curacao, Guyana, Peru, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico from 1938 thru 1956. The presentation took place during a religious ceremony sponsored by the Afro-Panamanian Pastoral Organization and Panama’ s Ecumenical Committee. Attorney Alberto Barrow, who heads the city's Office for Equality, and George Priestley, head of New York based Congress of Black Panamanians, attended the ceremony along with representatives of other Afro-Panamanian civic organizations.

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