Race and Afro-Brazilian Agency in Brazil (Routledge Studies on African and Black Diaspora) [1 ed.] 113860724X, 9781138607248

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Race and Afro-­Brazilian Agency in Brazil

This book provides an insight into the Afro-­Brazilian experience of racism in Brazil from the nineteenth century to the present day, exploring people of African ancestry’s responses to racism in the context of a society where racism was present in practice, though rarely explicit in law. Race and Afro-­Brazilian Agency in Brazil examines the variety of strategies, from conservative to radical, that people of African ancestry have used to combat racism throughout the diaspora in Brazil. In studying the legacy of color-­blind racism in Brazil, in contrast to racially motivated policies extant in the US and South Africa during the twentieth century, the book uncovers various approaches practiced by Afro-­Brazilians throughout the country since the abolition of slavery toward racism, unique to the Brazilian experience. Studying racism in Brazil from the latter part of the nineteenth century to the present day, the book examines areas such as art and culture, politics, and tradition. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Brazilian history, diaspora studies, race/ethnicity, and Luso-­Brazilian studies. Tshombe Miles is an Assistant Professor of Black and Latino Studies at Baruch College, City University of New York, USA.

Routledge Studies on African and Black Diaspora Series editors: Fassil Demissie DePaul University

and Sandra Jackson

DePaul University

1 Sex and Race in the Black Atlantic Mulatto Devils and Multiracial Messiahs Daniel McNeil 2 Representing the Black Female Subject in Western Art Charmaine A. Nelson 3 Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora Edited by Regine O. Jackson 4 Critical Perspectives on Afro-­Latin Amer­ican Literature Edited by Antonio D. Tillis 5 Afro-­Nordic Landscapes Equality and Race in Northern Europe Edited by Michael McEachrane 6 Pilgrimage Tourism of Diaspora Africans to Ghana Ann Reed 7 The Poetics and Politics of Diaspora Transatlantic Musings Jerome C. Branche 8 Post/Colonialism and the Pursuit of Freedom in the Black Atlantic Edited by Jerome C. Branche 9 Race and Afro-­Brazilian Agency in Brazil Tshombe Miles 

Race and Afro-­Brazilian Agency in Brazil

Tshombe Miles

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Tshombe Miles The right of Tshombe Miles to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-­in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-138-60724-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-46725-7 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne & Wear

Contents



Acknowledgments

vi



Introduction

1

1 Nineteenth-­century Afro-­Brazilian uplift: conservatives, reformers, and outlaw abolitionists

9

2 Black Brazilian protest from an African diasporic perspective during the First Republic and early Vargas era

33

3 High art, black art: one black theatre’s response to racism

57

4 Strategies against racism in the age of the military dictatorship

67

5 The emergence of black politics in political parties

81



Conclusion

99



Index

103

Acknowledgments

In many ways, this project like many ideas has been in my head for close to thirty years. Understanding how people of African ancestry continue to fight racism in a society that claims racism has mostly ended, since the United States post-­civil rights period. Keeps excluding people of African descent and still maintains people of African ancestry disproportionately at the bottom of the society is something I have been wrestling with since I started to think about Brazil as an undergraduate in college. In many ways, I believe Brazil reminds me of the world in which I grew up as a young person in the United States. As a youth, I have been blessed to live in a multiple ethnic and racial world in which I never knew de jure segregation first hand. Quite the contrary, my world was Morningside Heights Manhattan in the 1970s and 1980s where I freely intermingled with the working-­class and more solidly middle-­class kids of all races and background. Whether it was with childhood friends Lucas whose parents were immigrants of Swiss/German extraction, or my friend Claudio from Chile, or Max and Karen from Haiti, or my friends at The Cathedral School who were mainly white with a sprinkling of black and other minority groups. However, though I was deep friends with this group and treated with full acceptance, I did know racism first hand. In retrospect, I believe I often block those memories out of my head. I realize that racism is something that people of African ancestry experience in a variety of ways. I remember teachers ignoring me in the classroom and making me feel a sense of invisibility. Teachers and others assuming you are not quite as smart as them. One specific example that has always stayed in my head was the time I was detained in The Wiz, which was at that time a successful electronics/record store. I remember as a high school student spending hours at the record store, where I must have spent a good part of my allowance buying records. Therefore it was quite upsetting one day I went to the store with my white friend, being detained by the store clerk because they thought I stole something, and leaving my white friend free though we were together. Why did the sales clerk imagine I had taken something when I was a regular paying customer? Ultimately I knew why, my real question was how come he imagined all blacks as the same. Luckily I had parents who would not tolerate mistreatment of their children. My father marched down to that store and demanded they apologize. The store did apologize. It was the example of

Acknowledgments   vii my mother and father that gave me the tools to navigate this kind of world and to be able to call out how racism worked in a post-­civil rights era. It is in this regard my first thanks are to Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad are the inspiration and the source of my intellectual curiosity and my desire to make the world a more livable one. It was as an undergraduate that I first took an interest in Brazil, and Dr. Marina Fernando, my first mentor, helped me realize that interest into a reality. Who knew as an undergraduate that I would one day pursue a career in the “academy” as it were! Beyond my parents and Dr. Fernando, there has been a long list of support and help. Thanks are to the people at Brown University: Evelyn Hu-­dehart, Doug Cope, Rhett Jones, and Anani Dzidzienyo. If I had not met these folks, there would be no Ph.D. and no real learning at Brown University. Evelyn offered me a room in her home and gave me mentorship and an academic space as well as taught me Latin Amer­ican history. I will never forget her; she is a fantastic person. The others supported me as living and breathing intellectuals. They love to exchange ideas in their respective offices. I was fortunate to have independent studies with each one of these scholars. Imagine having the opportunity to read a book and then go to discuss it with the top scholar of the field for an hour or two each week. I want to include my friends the Kinory brothers; although we often diverge on political issues, ironically we are the best of friends. I want to thank Ari Ariel who is a scholar of Arab and Jewish identity and remains a close ally and the best of friends. I want to shout out to the gods for Tony Marin, whose deep interest in Brazil, Garifuna culture, and the African diaspora has made us bond closely. The Secor family remains close, and my childhood friend Rubain Dorancy, though we seldom speak these days (I look forward to catching up) because of our responsibilities, remains one person I love dearly. I want to thank some key people at Baruch College: Regina Bernard, Lourdes Gil, Clarence Taylor, and Arthur Lewin who has always taken a principal interest in my work. I want to save a special shout to the gods for Ana Yolanda Ramos Zayas. Ana is not only a leading scholar in her field, but she takes collegiality to a whole new level. She generally wished me all the best and created spaces where intellectuals could exchange their work, and where we could feel a sense of community. Doing academic work can be a lonely experience. One example of how she did this was by inviting me to her workshop with some of the top scholars on the question of race and racism in the Americas. I want to thank some of my chief interlocutors from that workshop and people over the years who encouraged me in different ways in the Whiteness in the Americas workshop: Carlos Vargas Ramos, Zaire Dinzey, Patricia Silver, Milagros Denis-­ Rosario, Hugo Ceron, Anahi Viladrich, Juan Usera, and Melissa Fischer. Also, I want to thank Hal Barton who beyond being a valuable interlocutor in the workshop has been a tremendous friend. We have had some wonderful conversations over the years that have been helpful in my intellectual trajectory. I want to thank Arlene Torres (who also participated in the Whiteness in the Americas workshop) and also Shirley Eversley for their work in sustaining the

viii   Acknowledgments Faculty Fellowship Publication Program. I genuinely benefited from that space; it was an excellent workshop that I participated in for one semester. I met some great people in that workshop as well. I want to thank all the members of that workshop, particularly the leader, Moustafa Bayoumi. These workshops helped form a community and were essential in me growing more confident as a scholar. I also want to thank my Brazilian colleague Geisa Mattos who participated in the Whiteness in the Americas workshop and invited me to publish in a very distinguished journal. The article helped me to reflect on the project in this book. Also, I want to thank other Brazilian scholars, such as Cleide Amorim who has invited me to participate in workshops and give talks at her university, as well as encouraged me to publish in a journal she was editing. I want to thank Sergio Krieger whom I have known since 1994 through his lovely wife Mirtes, whom I have known since 1992 and who is also a great friend. Sergio was kind to invite me to his university in Redencáo, Ceará. Also over the years Mirtes, Sergio, my partner Denise and our children have had a wonderful time spent with our respective families. Also, I want to thank Helio Amazonas who runs the Black and Indigenous project in Ceará for Estacio University. He has invited me numerous times to speak at his university, and I look forward to working with him on future projects. Special thanks are to Routledge and the editors of this series, Fassil Demissie and Sandra Jackson, and the whole staff over at Routledge. It has been a distinct pleasure to be published in African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, which is edited by Fassil Demissie. Finally, I want to thank my family beyond my mother and father. I want to thank my brother Niger for his support and love. Also, I want to thank the Costa family for their support over the years, particularly Dona Licia and Luis Carlos Sr. who have always taken great interest in my work and have been incredibly supportive to me. I want to thank in particular my partner Denise Costa. Not only has she given me the space to pursue my academic work to write and research. She was the person who took the time to translate my first book and help me publish it. She has assisted me in all kinds of ways, emotionally, as a friend, and so much more. Also, she is a great mother to our daughter Beatriz. I have enormous love and admiration for her. Beatriz is my heart, which for the last ten years has made my life truly worthwhile. I am sure Beatriz will one day use her agency and ability to help change the world for the better. I dedicate this book to Beatriz, and all the young people of African heritage. May you use your agency to reshape the world for a better tomorrow: a world in which racism will not affect the life chances of our common humanity. Axe, Tshombe Miles New York City

Introduction

In the United States (US), we can currently point to blacks that are part of the “one percent.” There are black billionaires in the US, and there has been a significant expansion of the black middle and upper classes since the 1960s on the one hand, but on the other hand, black people still lag behind whites in most socio-­economic indexes. In 2016, blacks represented 12% of the US adult population and 33% of the sentenced prison population, whereas whites accounted for 64% of adults and 30% of prisoners.1 Moreover, while Hispanics represented 16% of the adult population, they accounted for 23% of the inmates. Also, according to a Pew Research Center study done in 2016, black households had only 10 cents in wealth for every dollar held by white households, and the median wealth of non-­Hispanic white households was $171,000, which was a more significant gap than in 2007 when there was a significant recession. The US is no longer a society affected solely by de jure racism; we now live in a society influenced by what intellectuals such as Michelle Alexander have termed “color-­blind racism.” Color-­blind racism is when people of African ancestry face direct de jure racism that limits blacks’ life chances while facing many kinds of structural racism. In her book, Alexander eloquently demonstrates that people of African descent in the US are disproportionally imprisoned in a manner that is entrenched in a racialized way, or in what Loic Wacquant has called in his article “From Slavery to Mass Incarceration.” He explains how the US became a society that has always had a legacy of a dialectical relationship between the master and slave classes. He argues that over time this relationship has never essentially been erased and has been reproduced in different oppressive iterations, such as the Amer­ican ghettos, the Jim Crow south, and the “hyper ghetto” that maintains oppression through a carceral state that invests heavily in prisons and police forces, while cutting vital social services and investing less in education. The carceral state emerged after the civil rights movement in the US. What makes this system so different is that it is not done with the explicit intention of being racist. Nevertheless, it is people of color that have been entrapped in the prison system.2 This kind of system emerged in the US during the post-­civil rights era of the 1960s and promoted the idea that racism was no longer the ultimate issue in determining socio-­economic life chances of people of African ancestry, or at

2   Introduction least it was not the primary reason. In many ways, this consensus not only developed among more conservative thinkers but also became an understanding argued among mainstream social scientists. For example, the sociologist William Julius Wilson became one of the major purveyors of this type of analysis. He explained in The Decline of the Significance of Race and When Work Disappears that this was the case. He pointed to class factors as more salient. With the rise of the Reagan era in the US, these ideas were widely adopted. Conservative intellectuals such as Dinesh D’Souza produced popular extended essays, for example, his The End of Racism, that extolled color-­blind arguments. They all had in common the idea that, since there were no longer direct de jure laws, solving racism would need new ways of thinking. For those left of center, a variety of programs such as reparations, a domestic Marshal Program, and affirmative action were in order to address many of the structural problems that remained.3 For conservatives and people right of center, all that was needed was that people were treated equally under the law. In recent years, scholars have given new frameworks that show how racism works in the context of a color-­blind society;4 frameworks that show how people of African ancestry remain at the bottom of the socio-­economic ladder. This social context is largely based on a society that no longer engages in a community that adheres to de jure racism but maintains a functional system where people of African ancestry are disproportionately at the bottom of that society. In many ways, a post-­civil rights era society functions on an ideological level that has ideas similar to those that Brazil has been operating under since the nineteenth century. In other words, since the founding of Brazil, there has been a history that has only converged with that of the US since its post-­civil rights movement of the 1960s. The US now, in many ways, is aligned with Brazil in that a large segment of the society argues that racism is wrong and that all people should be treated as equals under the law. However, in Brazil, the idea of a color-­blind society and the concept that all men and women, regardless of race, are equal had origins going as far back as the nineteenth century during the era of the monarchy. This idea of a color-­blind society powerfully emerged during Brazil’s abolition era and, in some ways, was realized with the end of slavery. However, as with the civil rights era of the US, this clearly did not end racism. What emerged was a form of color-­blind racism. From an Afro-­diasporic perspective, this book argues that people of African ancestry in Brazil have utilized a variety of political strategies to fight color-­ blind racism. They have had a long history of fighting against slavery and racism in the Americas, although that history is different in each country. I suggest that, to create a framework that combats racism, we must look beyond the nation-­state to the transnational context, that is, people of African ancestry in the Americas share a common legacy of slavery and post-­slavery experiences that include racism and discrimination.5 Therefore this text will concern itself with how people of African ancestry in Brazil have used their agency for a better life. In order to do this I draw upon theoretical models of inquiry that use diasporic and transnational forms of analysis.6 In Latin America, the idea of a color-­blind

Introduction   3 society was the dominant ideology after slavery ended there. Bonilla-­Silva’s ideas, as set forth in Racism without Racists, articulate the racial attitudes that have been dominant since the nineteenth century during the Empire of Brazil though they have only been relevant in the USA since the 1960s. Brazil was the last country in the western hemisphere to end slavery, but it became the most well-­known culture that promoted a color-­blind society after the abolition of slavery.8 In the 1950s, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) chose to study Brazil because of its purported lack of racism. Researchers were hoping to determine why there was so little racism in Brazil. However, after the study, the scholars reported that racism did exist in Brazil, and that the degree of racial inequality was significant.9 Edward Telles further demonstrated that racial inequality exists in Brazil and throughout Latin America.10 One way of analyzing racial inequality in Brazil is to use the framework proposed by Bonilla-­Silva, which identifies four dominant frames of color-­blind racism.11 He said abstract liberalism is the most important frame. Abstract liberalism supports equal opportunity, but it usually opposes imposing social policies that dictate specific outcomes. Therefore, policies such as affirmative action, which attempt to redress past wrongs with special measures to help oppressed groups, can be derided as illiberal because they are arguably unfair to other groups that do not benefit from these policies. In the context of Brazil at the end of the nineteenth century, André Rebouças, the famed Afro-­Brazilian abolitionist and intellectual, who suggested giving ex-­slaves land and demanding special taxes from land barons, advanced a relevant measure.12 Here again, using an abstract liberal framework, it could be argued that giving land to ex-­slaves is unfair or in violation of liberal economic theory. Furthermore, creating small land plots is, potentially, an inefficient way to modernize a country’s economy. Indeed, the mainly white elite political establishment never took Rebouças’s proposal seriously. Ultimately, the ideals of liberalism provided the rationale for not implementing this plan.13 Bonilla-­Silva also asserted that “naturalization is a frame that allows whites to explain away racial phenomena by suggesting they are natural occurrences.”14 Moreover, he explained, “cultural racism is a frame that relies on culturally based arguments” to defend why people of African ancestry hold an inferior social status, and the “minimization of racism is a frame that suggests discrimination is no longer a central factor affecting minorities’ life chances.”15 Most abolitionists were classical liberals who believed in the progressive principles of the Enlightenment. However, as Bonilla-­Silva pointed out, “modernity, liberalism, and racial exclusion were all part of the same historical movement.” By using the term historical movement, Bonilla-­Silva is saying that, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, modernity, liberalism, and racial exclusion were often concepts conceived of by the same thinkers.16 However, in the presumed natural hierarchy of humans, Europeans were at the top.17 Thus, classical liberalism was fraught with contradictions on what constituted freedom, 7

4   Introduction liberty, and equality.18 Therefore, while Brazilian abolitionists all agreed that slavery was wrong, they did not agree on how and whether people of African ancestry should be integrated into the nation-­state. Joaquim Nabuco was likely the most important intellectual abolitionist protesting Brazilian slavery.19 Nabuco was from Pernambuco, and his family made its money from slave labor on its sugar plantations. Nevertheless, he became one of the fiercest fighters against slavery. Nabuco was deeply committed to constructing a modern Brazil. As a highly educated man, he was connected transnationally to the US and Europe. Modernity meant ending one of the worst blemishes in the Western world: racial slavery. By the 1870s, Brazil had become one of the last countries with open racial slavery. Therefore, part of the rationale for eradicating slavery, beyond the horrors of slavery as an institution, was that it was an outdated system that made Brazil look like a backward nation. Nabuco’s thinking was typical of the Brazilian abolitionists of his day and of a large segment of the white elite. For example, most white abolitionists believed they were living in a multi-­racial society in which race relations were already good. From Nabuco’s perspective, although slaves were black, Brazilians were not necessarily racists: Speaking collectively, slavery never poisoned the mind of the slave toward the master—fortunately for us—nor did it arouse between the two races that two-­way loathing which naturally exists between the two races outside. Slavery was never bitter, and the man of color found every avenue open before him. The debates in the last legislature and the liberal way the Senate agreed to the political eligibility of the freedmen (that is, the extinction of the last vestige of inequality carried over from slavery) prove that in Brazil color is not, as in the United States, a social prejudice with such built-­in obstinacy that little can be done for the purpose victimized by it, even by character, talent and merit. This fortunate harmony in which the different elements of our nationality live is for us a benefit of the greatest importance.20 For instance, although Machado de Assis, Brazil’s most prominent man of letters, was a man of color, Nabuco objected to the characterization of de Assis as a mulatto: “Mulatto, he was indeed a Greek … I would not have called Machado mulatto, and I think that nothing would have hurt him more.”21 If Nabuco did not harbor anxiety about blackness, why did he insist that de Assis was white? Nabuco acknowledged that Brazil was a multi-­racial society and that slavery was wrong, but he thought that blackness was associated with something negative. It was only through proper education and training that people of non-­ European heritage also could be “civilized” and escape their black racial identity. While mulattos and blacks were respected members of the professional class,22 most Brazilian elites, in particular, harbored anxiety and shame about Brazil’s African heritage.23 Nabuco acknowledged Brazil’s debt to its population of African descent, stating, for example, that “everything which has existed until today in the vast

Introduction   5 territory called Brazil was constructed or cultivated by that race; this means that it was the blacks who built our country.”24 Hence, although Nabuco gave credit to people of African ancestry and included them in the family of the nation, he engaged in color-­blind racism because he viewed the African population as inferior. He advocated for European immigration, not only because labor was needed, but also because he believed Europeans were a more advanced ethnic group.25 Moreover, he believed Brazil was backward and underdeveloped because of slavery, not just because slavery was an exploitative and sinister system, but also because he, as well as most elites, viewed an African-­ descendant-dominated society as an impediment to modernizing the nation. While he acknowledged the contributions of blacks, as well as their rights as citizens, and he had friends and colleagues who were black, he did not support the migration of more Africans to Brazil because he embraced the vision of a Eurocentric Brazil. On this point, even other Afro-­Brazilian abolitionists, such as José Carlos do Patrocínio and other prominent mulattos, were horrified by African culture and supported European migration to whiten the nation.26 As Bonilla-­Silva has noted, in the US, color-­blind racist ideology is often practiced in the black community in varying degrees, but it is most often practiced by those who do not necessarily suffer from the consequences of color-­blind racism. In Brazil, people of African ancestry have also practiced color-­blind racism.27 Color-­blind racism affects everyone, albeit in different ways. Disproportionately, elite whites in Brazil were the most exclusionary and the least tolerant of people of African ancestry.28 This system has helped maintain a culture in which people of African ancestry have been disproportionately relegated to the bottom tiers of society. Most elite abolitionists wanted to limit Afro-­Brazilian workers’ ability to negotiate the terms of their labor.29 Without major migration from abroad, people of African ancestry would have had more ability to negotiate those terms.30 By and large, white elites were primarily interested in abstract liberalism, and they believed that slavery was retarding modernity.31 This book further argues that people of African ancestry have used a variety of strategies to combat racism. Throughout the African diaspora, these strategies have varied from conservative to radical. All the people affected by the African diaspora have fought for their freedom using strategies ranging from assimilation to Afro-­diasporic approaches.32 Given that Afro-­Brazilians could not have used 1950s- and 1960s-style methods to combat racism, such as sit-­ins, boycotts, or even fighting through the legal system, as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has done, Afro-­Brazilians had to fight racism using methods that pertained to their particular circumstances. Racist oppression in Brazil has always operated under an ideology of color-­blind racism. This book uncovers the history of strategies and resistance that Afro-­Brazilian activists and politicians have used to combat racism in Brazil. As such, it discusses how they responded to racism in the context of a society that did not necessarily overtly discriminate in its laws (de jure), but where racism existed in

6   Introduction practice (de facto). Finally, this book proposes that, in studying the legacy of color-­blind racism in Brazil, it is possible to uncover a long history that is relevant to people throughout the African diaspora. With the success of the US civil rights movement in dismantling an openly racially discriminatory system in that country, and the collapse of apartheid in South Africa, color-­blind racism remains the primary barrier to defeating overall racism. I argue that, by uncovering the longue durée of Brazilian history, we can examine strategies that can be useful in the fight to break down this barrier. Moreover, I argue that color-­blind racism in Brazil has changed over time and that people of African ancestry have had many small victories. Because of Afro-­Brazilian agency, Brazil has permanently changed, and Brazilian society is more inclusive. Clearly, many challenges remain in Brazil, which is also the case throughout the African diaspora. Nevertheless, people of African ancestry have a long history of fighting racism in Brazil. In addition, they have been critical in changing how color-­blind racism has operated, and they have increased awareness of racism significantly in Brazil. I explore this history in five chapters. The first chapter looks at black agency during the Brazilian Empire of 1822 to 1889. I look at the abolition movement in particular in the context of how people of African ancestry were agents in their own history. Also, I show that the seeds of color-­blind racism started in the era of the Empire because, although there was racial slavery, there was mobility for free people of color. I show that Afro-­ Brazilian abolitionists responded in a variety of ways, and I argue that black abolitionists were instrumental in ending slavery but that they also were active in fighting against color racism, in regard to supporting measures that would improve the life chances of people of African ancestry. In this case, they proved less successful; nevertheless, although they were largely failures in this regard, I look at the strategies they used to undermine racism. The second chapter focuses on the Afro-­Brazilian struggle in the first post-­slave iteration of Brazilian color-­ blind racism. I look at Manuel Querino and the Frente Negra Brasiliera from an international perspective. I show that, in the early twentieth century, Brazil was considered a society where the question of racism had largely been solved. Also, the chapter argues that people of African ancestry were engaging in transnational conversations, but those conversations were more of a curiosity and were not necessarily viewed as a foundation for solidarity. I show this solidarity did not emerge because, in the US and Brazil, they believed that racism could largely be solved through having a society where all people were treated fairly under the law, and that if blacks had access to education, slavery would end. The third chapter focuses on the black theatre group Teatro Experimental Negra (TEN) and the leader of that group, Abdias do Nascimento. I show that the idea of racial democracy was being widely critiqued and that people of African ancestry in Brazil were subtly starting to develop a more Afro-­diasporic relationship with other communities in the African diaspora. Although Abdias do Nascimento saw himself as a Brazilian, he also saw himself as part of an African diaspora, and the work of theatre embraced those ideas. The fourth chapter looks at how people of African ancestry fought anti-­black sentiment in the context of a

Introduction   7 military government. I look at Adalberto Carmargo, a successful black congressman from São Paulo, and focus on programs that encouraged black economic opportunity and self-­determination. Also, Carmargo was interested in creating trade between Africa and Brazil through a Brazil-­Africa organization. I also explore how reggae and soul music were used to create a black community and served to promote a black aesthetic and were a means of protest. The fifth chapter examines the rise of major political parties in Brazil and how these parties were influenced by the black movements in Brazil. I look at the Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT) and Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). I also look at Celso Pitta, an Afro-­Brazilian conservative who became mayor of São Paulo and navigated politics that did not focus on the black collective struggle but rather the black individual struggle. Moreover, I show how Pitta exploited his humble roots and his black identity to become mayor.

Notes   1 According to Forbes list there are currently three black Amer­icans billionaires: Robert Smith, Oprah Winfrey, and Michael Jordan; see www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/ 2018/03/07/the-­black-billionaires-­2018/#3bcc32c25234.   2 Loic Wacquant, “From Slavery to Mass Incarceration: Rethinking the ‘Race Question’ in the US,” New Left Review 13 (2002): 41.   3 In recent years discussion of reparation has been suggested by Ta-­Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations,” The Atlantic, June 22, 2018, accessed May 23, 2019, www. theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-­case-for-­reparations/361631/. Randall Robinson, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks (New York: Plume, 2001). At the time this book was a best-­seller. Other important books are Charles P. Henry, Long Overdue: The Politics of Racial Reparations (New York: New York University Press, 2009); and J. Angelo Corlett, Heirs of Oppression: Racism and Reparations (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010).    4 Glenn C. Loury et al., Race, Incarceration, and Amer­ican Values (Boston Review Book) (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008).   5 Edward Eric Telles, Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014).   6 Michael Hanchard, “Acts of Misrecognition: Transnational Black Politics, Anti-­ Imperialism and the Ethnocentrisms of Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc Wacquant,” Theory, Culture & Society 20, no. 4 (2003); Abdias do Nascimento and Elisa Larkin Nascimento, Africans in Brazil: A Pan-­African Perspective (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1992); Michael O. West, William G. Martin, and Fanon Che Wilkins, From Toussaint to Tupac: The Black International since the Age of Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009).   7 Richard Graham et al., The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870–1940 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990).   8 Eduardo Bonilla-­Silva, Racism without Racists: Color-­Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014).   9 Paulina L. Alberto, Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-­Century Brazil (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011). 10 Telles, Pigmentocracies. 11 Bonilla-­Silva, Racism without Racists. 12 Nancy Priscilla Naro, A Slaves Place: Fashioning Dependency in Rural Brazil (London: Cassell, 1999). 13 Bonilla-­Silva, Racism without Racists.

8   Introduction 14 Bonilla-­Silva, Racism without Racists, 104. 15 Bonilla-­Silva, Racism without Racists, 104. 16 Bonilla-­Silva, Racism without Racists, 103. 17 Bonilla-­Silva, Racism without Racists; Thomas E. Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought, with a Preface to the 1993 edition and Bibliography (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005). 18 Bonilla-­Silva, Racism without Racists. 19 Jeffrey D. Needell, “A Liberal Embraces Monarchy: Joaquim Nabuco and Conservative Historiography,” The Americas 48, no. 2 (1991). 20 Joaquim Nabuco and Robert Edgar Conrad, Abolitionism: The Brazilian Antislavery Struggle (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), 21. 21 Emilia Viotti Da Costa, The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 241. 22 Graham et al., The Idea of Race in Latin America. 23 Skidmore, Black into White; Sales Augusto dos Santos, “Historical Roots of the ‘Whitening’ of Brazil,” Latin Amer­ican Perspectives 29, no. 1 (2002). 24 Nabuco and Conrad, Abolitionism, 20. 25 Elizabeth Hordge-­Freeman, The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, and Socialization in Black Brazilian Families (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015). 26 Skidmore, Black into White; Santos, “Historical Roots of the ‘Whitening’ of Brazil.” 27 Bonilla-­Silva, Racism without Racists; Skidmore, Black into White; Alexander Edmonds, Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex, and Plastic Surgery in Brazil (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010). 28 Edward E. Telles, Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). 29 George Reid Andrews, Blacks and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888–1988 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991). 30 Andrews, Blacks and Whites.  31 Skidmore, Black into White; D. Haberly, “Abolitionism in Brazil: Anti-­Slavery and Anti-­Slave,” Luso-­Brazilian Review 9, no. 2 (1972): 30–46. 32 For excellent examples of Afro-­diasporic approaches to resistance see Michael O. West, William G. Martin, and Fanon Che Wilkins, From Toussaint to Tupac: The Black International since the Age of Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009). The book shows ways in which the Haitian revolution was diasporic. Hip-­hop, and the Black Panthers all participated in Afro-­diasporic cultures.

1 Nineteenth-­century Afro-­Brazilian uplift Conservatives, reformers, and outlaw abolitionists

In 1888, Brazil was the last country in the western hemisphere to end slavery. In 1808, the royal family of Portugal had fled their country and relocated to the monarchy of the Portuguese Empire in Brazil, establishing themselves in what became the capitol of Brazil at that time, Rio de Janeiro. As a result of this unusual moment in history, the elite planters of all regions of Brazil united around the monarchy. Unlike the Spanish colonies in Latin America the Creole class did not have a king to rally around with the invasion of Napoleon in Spain. As a result, white elites, in particular, were divided, and this spelled the collapse of the Spanish colonies in Latin America. Many white elites abandoned supporting Spain and sought independence. As a result, white elites in the former Spanish colonies were either forced to end slavery and end racial discrimination, as was the case in Mexico, or to begin the process of ending slavery and at least promoting a rhetoric of racial equality, as was the case in Gran Colombia.1 In fact it was because of the solidarity of overwhelmingly white slave-­owners that slavery was prolonged in Brazil. Nevertheless this did not mean there was not enormous resistance to slavery and a racial hierarchical order. In this chapter, I will focus on Afro-­Brazilian involvement in the abolition movement, as a way of looking at how the Afro-­Brazilians fought against racism, I will explore how black abolitionists had to negotiate with a Brazilian Empire that was extremely hierarchical and based on racial slavery but still, interestingly enough, afforded a small segment of people of African ancestry an opportunity to attain high levels within the elite structure of the society. Therefore, there were different strategies that Afro-­Brazilians employed concerning the issue of slavery. There was no monolithic way of thinking about the issue of slavery, so I will approach it in three ways in order to outline the general perspectives that existed within the Afro-­Brazilian community. Conservative free persons of African descent did not oppose slavery. Although a minority, they existed and, in many cases, benefited from the institution of slavery. Second were the mainstream abolitionists, represented by the black abolitionists, Luiz Gama, André Rebouças, José Patrocínio, and many others. They advocated the end of slavery and fought tenaciously for that cause. I will focus on this group because they represent the heart of the sentiment of the majority of people of African ancestry. However, though they fought against slavery, they dealt with

10   Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift racism much more moderately. In some ways, they accepted aspects of Eurocentric thinking, which promoted the idea that people of African ancestry were, at the very least, culturally inferior, but this was not true in all cases. Unfortunately, the literature on people of African ancestry in Brazil and Latin America, in general, has no connection to their African past, which is a reality of the African diaspora. Frantz Fanon of Martinique, in his classic work Black Skin, White Mask (1952), was one of the first to describe the impact of French colonialism from a psychological perspective of the colonized.2 People of African ancestry adopted the perspective of the colonialists often against their ancestors’ own political interests, and this was an integral part of black leadership throughout the black diaspora and was widely manifested.3 Fanon explained it this way: Although the colonizer is the minority, he does not feel he is made inferior. In Martinique, there are 200 whites who consider themselves superior to the 300,000 people of color. In South Africa, there are 2 million whites to almost 13 million Blacks and it has never occurred to a single Black to ­consider himself superior to a white minority.4 Fanon then goes on to say: “Inferiorization is the native correlative to the European’s feeling of superiority. Let us have the courage to say: It is the racist who creates the inferiorized.”5 No doubt Fanon was generalizing when he said that “it has never occurred to a single Black to consider himself superior to a white minority.” Obviously, there were many revolts against European colonialism in Africa, and some of the fiercest resistance occurred in South Africa under the leadership of Chaka Zulu. But, indeed, one of the ways of creating forms of hegemony is to indoctrinate the colonized and the colonist with the belief of white superiority, and on some level, the colonized must buy into these ideas that Europeans and European descendants are more qualified to rule. However, naturally, there are always forms of counterhegemonic projects, and in fact, that is the point of this book. Throughout the Caribbean, there remains a legacy of colorism. Racial hierarchies are based on how close one is to whiteness. Even in Haiti, the country which had one of the most important revolutions against slavery, racism continues to cause internal divisions between people of partial African ancestry, or “mulattos,” and “negros,” those of “pure” African ancestry. In fact, this issue is the result of Haiti’s colonial past, which had a prosperous mulatto class that, in many cases, owned slaves as well. After the revolution in Haiti, this mulatto class would disproportionately remain economically at the top of the racial pyramid and would continue to have the most significant influence within society. This was also true in Jamaica, where slavery ended in 1838, and it was a “mulatto” class that emerged as disproportionally the more successful and that were the elites of the island.6 Stuart Hall, the late social scientist, noted that, in his family, though they were people of color, his mother believed herself to be racially superior and was horrified when her daughter married a dark-­skinned black person, even though he was a medical doctor. In the US, pigmentocracy

Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift   11 outside of former colonies was less important to whites, who were the majority of the population and viewed people of partial African ancestry and people of “pure” African ancestry with equal disdain. However, that does mean that, even in the US, people perceived as of partial African heritage have comparatively done better and for a variety reasons have had better life chances. Carl Degler, in his classic book Neither Black Nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States, which compares and contrasts the racial hierarchies of Brazil and the US, though dated in many respects, deftly points out that, indeed, the US has a history of colorism and a population of people of African ancestry with lighter skin. For example, Degler points out that much of black leadership came from a black elite who because they were light-­skinned had easier access to education and social opportunity because of colorism: Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois and, later in the twentieth century, Adam Clayton Powell and Whitney Young.7 However, in the US, as white people were the majority in the society, there was less of a need to have a mulatto elite or a middle class of mulatto elites, and there was a conscious decision to allow only those deemed white to have access to middling positions within the framework of North Amer­ican democracy. However, during the Reconstruction era following the Civil War, slavery was officially abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment (1865), and the Fourteenth (1868) and Fifteenth (1870) Amendments granted voting rights and citizenship to black people. The period from 1865 to 1877 saw a truly democratic moment that allowed for African-­Amer­icans to participate in politics, and an impressive number of laws were passed that, within a generation, saw a group of ex-­slaves who were formerly illiterate gaining access to literacy. Also, a system of black universities emerged after Reconstruction, such as Fisk, Hampton, Tuskegee, and other colleges that would eventually become Morehouse, Spellman, and Howard universities. In other words, during this period, the establishment of a small educated class of black elites would emerge. But, because of an apartheid system that developed after slavery in the southern states and laws that encouraged racial segregation in the north and west, such as housing covenants preventing blacks from living in the same neighborhoods, white deliberate job discrimination, and deliberate lack of access to loans and credit anywhere in the US, blacks were systematically discriminated against in the US until the civil rights laws of 1963 and 1965 were enacted. However, in Brazil, people of African ancestry were discriminated against as well, but there was a lack of laws that institutionalized such practices. Even during the Empire of Brazil (1822–1889) in an era of racial slavery, racial hierarchies were present. People of African ancestry who were born free technically had full rights to citizenship if they owned property. Therefore, there was a whole class of people of African ancestry who were allowed to vote and became eligible for all political positions. It is in this context that there existed a group of people of African ancestry who worked not for change or the end of a hierarchical system but to succeed within that system. Finally, there were those who did neither and lived on the margins of society. They were what I will call part of an

12   Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift “outlaw culture.” They were outlaws because people of African ancestry who deliberately attempted to recapture their African past were in opposition to the socio-­economic system of Brazil.

Outlaw culture Afro-­Brazilians used outlaw cultures as a mechanism to fight white supremacy and, most importantly, to preserve the various African cultural traditions, or the formation of new mestico cultures that have existed since colonial times. This mode of resistance has always existed on the edges of society but, nevertheless, should be explored. I have termed this strategy outlaw culture because African culture existed among the slaves but was often repressed. Outlaw culture was analogous to conservative Afro-­Brazilians in the sense that neither directly challenged the status quo. Alternative cultures in Brazil have never helped to irrevocably alter white supremacy, at least as far as changing the socio-­economic reality for Afro-­Brazilians. This is not to say the slave did not fight for his freedom in a direct confrontational way. Brazil probably had the most serious slave revolts in the western hemisphere, with the exception of Haiti (the only country to have a successful revolt). Slaves revolted for different reasons. Some revolts were based on ethnicity and some on religion, and others were fought for racial equality, as was the case of the 1798 revolt in Bahia. The leaders of this revolt were Lucas Dantas, Joao de Deus, and Luiz Gonzaga das Virgens; these men of color were all fighting for the elimination of racism. This was also the case of the uprising in Recife (1823), led by Captain Pedro da Fonesca da Silva Pedrosa, a man of color.8 Ethnic- and religious-­inspired revolts were also common, the most noteworthy being the revolts in Bahia (1807–1835).9 The revolts of this period were organized primarily by the Yoruba and Dahomey ethnic groups. The reason the Bahian slave was hard to control was because, as with many of the urban slaves from Salvador, Bahian slaves were culturally held together by the Muslim faith; it was much harder to control slaves who were linked by the same cosmology. Slaves who shared the same religion and ethnicity were able to organize themselves better than slaves who did not share the same worldview. Another example of slave resistance was the formation of quilombos. Quilombos were usually small transient communities located in the hills or jungles that were created by runaway slaves. Palmares (1603–1694) was the largest and the longest surviving quilombos in Brazilian history. However, quilombos were not necessarily progressive or interested in ending slavery. For instance, Palmares residents often maintained slavery among slaves they captured but gave freedom to slaves who had escaped of their own accord.10 However, neither slave revolts nor quilombos were the slaves’ greatest accomplishment. It was their ability to maintain or create new forms of Afro-­ Brazilian cultural expression that proved most significant. The best example was their religion. The two African ethnic groups that were most successful in transporting their religion were the Bantu and Yoruba. Those who practiced the Bantu religion

Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift   13 r­ eadapted themselves to Indian religions and Catholicism, which they encountered and were able to integrate different aspects of. The Yoruba were able to maintain a much more orthodox version of their religion (as was the case of the Bahian Candomblé) than were the Bantu, whose religions became more influenced by other cultural groups (as was the case of the Macumba in Rio de Janeiro). These cultural and religious manifestations were so important because they allowed the enslaved an identity other than that of a slave. Afro-­Brazilian religions allowed the enslaved an alternative to the racist definitions that were used by mainstream society to define Afro-­Brazilians. Ultimately, these African cultural and religious expressions allowed the Afro-­Brazilians to define themselves. Even though religious practices such as Macumbas and Candomblés were unable to improve the Afro-­Brazilians’ socio-­economic position, Afro-­Brazilians had an enormous influence in the sphere of culture. These cultural influences remain strong in Brazilian music, dance, cuisine, and language. Afro-­Brazilian culture has had such a profound impact on Brazil that it is considered “Brazilian” as opposed to “Afro-­Brazilian.”11 The Afro-­Brazilian has in many ways shaped the national Brazilian identity, which is an incredible feat considering the pressure of the elite to destroy Afro-­Brazilian culture before and after slavery. Thus, out of this outlaw culture came many strategies for fighting racism.

The Afro-­Brazilian conservative A conservative is one who resists change and seeks to maintain the status quo. This was the attitude among a segment of the Afro-­Brazilian community. The conservative Afro-­Brazilian did not opt to change the system that oppressed him, but rather hoped to coexist within it. He or she saw enough fluidity within the system. This was particularly true among the freedmen of color before slavery ended. Ironically, it was only after abolition that racism became an unavoidable problem, especially in the southern states where people of color were displaced by white immigrants in many sectors of the labor force.12 This is not to say discrimination did not exist during the colonial period (1500–1822). Numerous laws discriminated against freedmen of color, and discrimination was officially inscribed in the law. In many cases, people of color were not allowed to own property, and they were required to dress in ways that would not offend their “superior” classes.13 Other laws prohibited any person who was considered not of pure blood (people of color and Jews) from holding public office or positions in the church.14 Yet, many free Afro-­ Brazilians were able to circumvent these laws and rise to high positions in society. In this respect, US historian Carl Degler’s “mulatto escape hatch” theory was correct. If the Afro-­Brazilian’s skin was light enough and he or she was willing to deny African heritage and was sponsored by certain elites in society, there was a chance of social mobility, even if this was not the norm. The individual cases were numerous enough that by the time of the Empire (1822–1889), freedmen of color were socio-­economically integrated into

14   Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift society. With the exception of high government positions, freedmen of color were represented in nearly all professions. Still, whites fared better than pardos (people of mixed blood), and pardos did overwhelmingly better than blacks.15 During the nineteenth century, it was feasible for freedmen of color to gain social mobility, provided they were cultured in European ways, socially well connected, and preferably of lighter skin color. A perfect example is the contrast between two of Brazil’s great writers, João da Cruz e Sousa and Machado do Assis. Machado do Assis, who achieved success, never highlighted his African ancestry, and he never wrote about racism or slavery in a direct way.16 He cultivated a very “cultured” persona. He spoke fluent French and was familiar with all of the European literary styles of the day, while his peer João da Cruz e Sousa, a fine poet, was never accepted because he did not have the connections of Machado do Assis, and ultimately was too dark-­skinned to be accepted in society. In fact, one of the biggest thorns in the side of the abolitionist movement was the light-­skinned mulatto Baron Cotegipe, who fought viciously to maintain slavery.17 There was also Baron Francisco Paulo de Almeida, a black man who owned more than two hundred slaves and was one of the most successful businessmen during the time of the Empire.18 Also, there was Zé Alfaiate, a black man from Salvador, Bahia, who was born into slavery but bought his way out and became a major slave trader.19 In sum, in the time of the Empire, many freedmen of color were able to rise to great socio-­economic heights in spite of great obstacles, though it was easier for lighter-­skinned than for darker-­skinned Afro-­Brazilians to do so.20 Because of the lack of legal restrictions placed on them in society at that moment in history, a segment of them saw no need to end slavery, and an even larger segment saw no reason to identify with their African ancestry. As Herbert Klein showed us in his study of freedmen in Minas Gerais, a segment of freedmen owned slaves, and freedmen were integrated into nearly every sector of the Brazilian economy, though at disproportional rates.21 In other words, light-­skinned people were overrepresented at the top, and at lower levels, people of visible African ancestry were overrepresented. This was the case in Minas Gerais, and there is no reason to believe this was not the case in other parts of Brazil.22 Therefore, it was rational to think that a segment of the Afro-­Brazilian community would embrace a conservative strategy for upward mobility. Rather than directly challenging the system of racism, they worked within the system of racism because they stood to benefit.

The Afro-­Brazilian reformer In contrast to the Afro-­Brazilian conservative who sought upward mobility by working within the system, the Afro-­Brazilian reformer sought to reform the system by embracing liberalism. The idea of liberalism involved vague ideas of democracy, and examples could be found in the values of the French Revolution. However, as Bonilla-­Silva proposed, these ideas were abstract.23

Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift   15 The ideas of “modernity, liberalism, and racial exclusion were all part of the same historical movement.”24 So, as I stated in the Introduction, by using the term historical movement, Bonilla-­Silva is saying that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, modernity, liberalism, and racial exclusion were often concepts conceived of by the same thinkers.25 In other words, black abolitionists were reformers trying to reconcile hierarchical society based on racism. However, Afro-­Brazilian reformers did not always embrace their African ­cultural heritage in the way many lower-­class Afro-­Brazilians often did, for example, Afro-­Brazilians who were slaves and those who were free and of humble means. There were spaces that were instrumental in allowing people of African ancestry to restructure Catholicism in their own images. This could be seen in African lay organizations called Irmandades or, in English, “The Brotherhoods.” In these brotherhoods, black people buried their dead, often bought the freedom of slaves, and retained African celebrations, such as the King and Queen of the Congo. These brotherhoods were found in every region of Brazil and were often the center of African Catholic culture, but they also maintained an appreciation for their African heritage. Moreover, many of the members were abolitionist in their own way. During the last years of slavery of the early 1880s, Irmandades often became more active in their resistance toward slavery. However, elite abolitionists often did not stress their African nature as much as the role they played in the Brazilian nation. Nevertheless, in their embracing of Western European cultural ideas, black elite abolitionists were similar to their white counterparts. The abolitionist movement was not about race as much as it was about changing the archaic slave system into a modern nation-­state that used free labor. The abolitionists viewed slavery as backward and as retarding ­Brazil’s economic development. They also argued that, as long as Brazil had slavery, it would never be able to encourage immigration, because the immigrants could never successfully compete with slave labor.26 The majority of the Afro-­Brazilian abolitionist leadership consisted of educated men who believed in liberalism and yearned for a more progressive Brazil where they would be embraced as Brazilians regardless of color.

Luiz Gama: a Reformer in an outlaw tradition Luiz Gama (1830–1882) is often referred to as the precursor of abolition because his work took place before the major abolition movements of the 1870s and 1880s. Using his legal skills, Gama is said to have been responsible for saving over five hundred people of color from slavery.27 Gama’s fight against slavery was a humanistic struggle as much as it was an ideological struggle involved with the interpretation of liberalism. His fight was not just against slavery, it was for a racial democracy. Gama was a person of African ancestry born into freedom in Itaparica, Bahia to a white upper-­class Brazilian father and a free African mother. His father came from a prosperous family but was a degenerate gambler, who sold his son

16   Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift Gama into slavery in order to pay off a gambling debt. Gama, after being bought and sold, was finally sold to a slave owner who traded in slaves for a living. After running away in São Paulo and joining the military, Gama became part of a police militia in São Paulo, and through good fortune, was able to serve an apprenticeship and went on to become a lawyer, though never completing a formal law course. Thus, he became a rabula (a lawyer without a formal degree). In addition, he wrote books of poetry and was a renowned opinion writer in several Brazilian newspapers. From 1864 to 1869, he wrote in four different papers: Diabo Coxo (1864–1865), Cabriao (1865), O Ipiranga (1867), and O Radical Paulistano (1869).28 In his journalism, opinion writing, and poetry, he wrote sardonically, in the sense that he humorously made a mockery of racial hierarchies and particularly slavery.29 While in all of these professions, he used them as a means to further his main cause which was to end slavery. Indeed, being sold into slavery by his own father deeply impacted Gama, and as a result, his major concern was to end slavery and to end racism. A talented man such as Gama could have taken the conservative route and sought personal socio-­economic mobility and downplayed his racial and class status. Instead, Gama actively mocked mulattos and blacks who looked for socio-­economic mobility while their fellow Afro-­Brazilians were in bondage. He was particularly hostile to blacks who attempted to pass for white in Brazilian society. In many ways, Luiz Gama can be considered a precursor to Frantz Fanon in the sense that he recognized how slavery and a system of racial hierarchy had a direct impact on people of African ancestry, and he attempted to break this cycle. He was deeply aware of his racial identity and perceived Brazil as a country that largely consisted of people of African ancestry. He felt no need to be ashamed of his ancestry, and he chided people of African ancestry for not being proud or having solidarity with other people of African ancestry.30 Gama’s poetry expressed his deep feelings about his cause: Pacotilha (Bandits) If fake nobility cruel peddler that feels like a Baron already thinks that it is high class; those that see him selling onions are always saying that the fool is crazy “if in bosoms that excite tremendous dishonor, they increase distinctions and rewards of honor; and that, with money, the crude bandy-­legs are carrying smooth talk and changing color.”31

Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift   17 Moreover, he was actively proud of his African ancestry. For example, he wrote: Minha Mae (My Mom) She was beautiful and well-­formed She was the prettiest little Black woman from the fitting Libyan Queen, but in Brazil, a poor slave woman! Oh, what longing that I have for her tender caresses, when we were young children She would cry, play when pleasure would half-­open her lily-­pink lips, she pretended martyrdom In the darkness of solitude. The white teeth, snow-­covered. For liberty was a myth, in the face of afflicted pain Black is the color of slavery … I?32 Gama, in one case, chastised fellow Republican Glicsrio for supporting slavery when he said: I cannot be Republican and on the side of the slavocrats. And you Glicsrio, although you are not a Black man as I am, but a Mulatto with African blood in your veins, you will have the obligation to be with our group, and not that of the slavocrat.33 Gama sought to reform the system, and as the following poem demonstrates, he was against white supremacy: Who am I?/If black I am, or a goat, it matters little./For what should this denote?/Goats there are of every caste,/It’s a species that’s very vast/Some goats are the color of ash,/some spotted/some faded/others mottled/Black goats there are, white goats, /and let’s be frank,/there are goats of little note/ and some of highest rank./Rich goats, poor goats,/wise goats, prize goats/ and some wheeler-­dealer goats/Here in this good land,/everyone butts, everyone bleats! Noble counts and duchesses/wealthy damsels and marquises,/senators and deputies,/overseers and country lords,/lovely ladies proud,/flaunting their magnificence/pompous princeling loud/boasting their significance/imperial dandies,/padres, bishops, cardinals, grandees,/poor folk, fine folk,/my kinsmen every bloke./In each resplendent army coterie/ One spots some high-­born goaterie.34

18   Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift It was common during Gama’s life for a pardo to be called a goat, and this poem shows Gama had no problem with his identity as a black man. Gama refused to accept racial hierarchies. He realized that it was problematic to see the world this way and was fighting to bring an end to a society of racial hierarchies that saw Afro-­Brazilians as somehow less than white Brazilians. Gama was actively using the fight for freedom against slavery as a way to fight for racial justice. He understood that, as long as people of African ancestry were enslaved, all African people would be linked to slavery. It was not uncommon for a free black to be re-­enslaved, as was the case with Gama himself. His political beliefs were opposed to the monarchy of Brazil (1822–1889) because of its hierarchical ideal that considered some men better than others. He joined the Republican Party because he thought they would fight for the end of slavery and because they wanted a democratic society where all could vote and participate in politics. However, the main issue of the leadership of the Republican Party was not ending slavery, even though there were many members who believed in this. The Republicans’ main priority was rather the decentralization of government. Luiz Gama was the precursor of the abolition movement, and this was particularly true in the context of São Paulo where Gama was headquartered and fought on behalf of slaves for their liberation.  Gama would die of diabetes some six years before the end of slavery in Brazil, which would officially occur on May 13, 1888. After his death, two of Gama’s colleagues, Antonio Bento and Raul Pompeia, would continue the efforts of Gama, particularly those that emphasized direct action. When Gama was alive, he took direct action to end slavery through finding legal ways to free slaves. One way he was able to free many slaves was by utilizing the 1831 law that had outlawed slavery, but he also defended slaves who killed their master, and he won some of these cases. He also harbored runaway slaves. But, by the time he died, his disciples had taken it one step further by actually making alliances with black slaves and poor people of African ancestry. One way of doing this was through working directly with the black brotherhoods.35 In reality, one of the reasons for the actual decline of slavery was not the actions of elite landowners, but it was the work of slaves themselves who were running away en masse, which threatened the possible collapse of the hierarchical structure if slaves were not indeed freed. In fact, there were cases of slaves taking up arms and fleeing to quilombos.36

José do Patrocínio: against slavery but an ambivalent understanding of blackness The black abolitionist José do Patrocínio (1854–1905) was born as José Carlos Patrocínio in the city of Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. His father was identified as a white man, though he most likely had indigenous ancestry as well.37 His father was a vicar in the Catholic faith and was independently wealthy and the owner of many slaves. His father did not register his son and did not officially recognize him.38 This was not unusual, as it was more or

Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift   19 less similar to the case of Luiz Gama. However, in the case of Patrocínio, he was not recognized officially by his father but was supported by him––his father helped him with connections en route to social mobility and with small stipends to help him get an education. His mother, Justina Maria do Espírito Santo, was a freed slave who sold fruits for a living. Patrocínio would eventually become a journalist, but he initially trained as a pharmacist. He came from the interior province of Rio de Janeiro State to study in the city of that same name in 1868 and applied for the pharmacy course at the Faculdade de Medicina in Rio de Janeiro. Upon completing his studies, he was unable to start his own pharmacy, so he took a job instead as a tutor in exchange for shelter, clothing, and food. In addition, he continued writing in newspapers, which he had begun in publications of student newspapers, until creating the pamphlet Os Ferrões. As a tutor, he would meet his future wife, Maria Henriqueta de Sena, also known as Bibi. Her father did not take kindly that his generosity in assisting Patrocínio had resulted in Patrocínio courting his daughter; he thought a person of obvious African descent was not suitable for his daughter. However, over time, he learned to accept Patrocínio and on January 15, 1881, Patrocínio and Maria were married in an elaborate ceremony in São Cristóvão.39 From the time Patrocínio came to the city of Rio de Janeiro, he began writing and he ultimately became a prominent figure in the press. His major theme was the fight against slave labor in Brazil. He steadily became an important figure, but once he got married, his father-­in-law, in that same year of 1881, decided to support his son-­in-law by giving him a loan to buy the newspaper Gazeta da Tarde. Over time, he would be the owner of Gazeta da Tarde, Gazeta de Notícias, and, later, Cidade do Rio. With direct and even aggressive writing, he aroused the enmity of journalists, politicians, slaveholders, and jurists. He openly criticized the Emperor, Dom Pedro II, the monarchy, and slavery as elements that undermined true democratic practice. His work in the press put him among the important group of abolitionists who stood out in the final years of slavery, fighting alongside Joaquim Nabuco and André Rebouças, men of politics and letters. Patrocínio wrote three novels: Mota coqueiro, Os retirantes, and Pedro Espanhol. However, he was best known for his journalism, writing about politics, and his fight against slavery. As an abolitionist and writer, he faced racial criticism from all sides. Moreover, he suffered from aggressive racism. What is interesting about these attacks is that they were contextualized with the understanding that slaves did not have rights. An example of this kind of critique came from a fellow person of African descent, Apulco de Castro, who wrote: Did he choose a madame of his own race, stern, stout and cunning? Exactly no he did not! We are not fool old boy. This is good for fools, not for our race, not for Quilombolas of the great moralizing press of the Court, not for the smart journalist winning. The black boy wanted by force a pretty, and pampered white girl.40

20   Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift The writer Apulco de Castro, who was born in Bahia, though also a mulatto like José Patrocínio, believed Patrocínio was essentially a race traitor for marrying a white woman. Interestingly, because of the restrictions and social taboos since the beginning of slavery, the idea of marrying out of your “race” was something often seen as a problem among people within the African diasporic communities. For example, Frederick Douglass faced enormous hostility in the nineteenth century when his black wife died, and he later remarried a white woman. He came under enormous criticism from many in the black community. Also, other people of African ancestry took a conscious decision in marrying a fellow person of African ancestry, as was the case of the poet Cruz da Souza—who believed that by marrying a black woman, he could produce black children who were intellectually and physically fit, thus disproving the stereotypes of blacks.41 In his writings, Patrocínio talked about the need to end slavery, but he spoke in unflattering terms of the slaves, calling them brutes. Literary critic David Brookshaw analyzed some of Patrocínio’s fictional work and shows how he is often derogatory in describing Afro-­Brazilians. For instance, Patrocínio once described a black slave in his novel Motta coquiero as having: the large black face of the hangman, stupid and truculent … His features glowed with the bestiality of the crime … His angry look, filtered through a pair of black pupils covered by a bloodshot cornea. Through his fat flashy nostrils, his savage ignorance breathed in the life-­giving air necessary to the fulfillment of his animal instincts.42 We do not know if indeed this is how Patrocínio felt because it is quoted from a work of fiction. Therefore, one cannot blame Patrocínio for this, because his fiction was a product of his time, and literary aesthetics were not appreciated or valued among the Western-­educated. So, perhaps, in his narratives, he was copying the style of his time. However, unlike many other Afro-­Brazilians, Patrocínio never denied his roots and was a proud black man. In his defense, of his identity and class, he stated: Yes, I’m a hard working black man. I’ve worked since I was a boy, I made it through my perseverance, also because first I of all always wanted to honor the [black], of whom I am proud to be descendant from my grandfathers who conquered their freedom through their honesty and my mother who loved her work so much that upon arriving here and seeing that my writing office had two doors, she asked me for one of them to continue with the grocery store, her beloved grocery store companion faithful and supportive of her honesty. I’m black a black worker, yes, I receive the salary of my honest work; not seeing the causes that trust me.43 As a person of African ancestry, he was often insulted. Ironically, after the end of slavery, he was attacked by former abolitionists, as well as conservative Republicans, who resented him for being a dignified black man, who did not

Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift   21 seem to know his place and whose mother was a black street vendor. He was also very critical of his father, a Portuguese Catholic vicar who was pro-­slavery. He accused his father of being unethical and owning slaves illegally. In one editorial, he wrote: I must inform Mr. Saraiva that [the Africans held by my father] were reduced to slavery, that on many occasions I heard one of them trembling and repeating in a deeply moving chant this accusing stanza, coarse with the intelligence of the underdog, a verse which until today has agitated my sleep and will continue to do so until in some way I can make up for my father’s crime: “The White man is greatly honored./He drinks no rum,/but makes the freed black toil for him/until he’s numb.” I saw in the house where I grew up, aside from the unhappy Arsenio, many other Africans who were unquestionably of the same origin; from them my father’s slaves were derived, and these grew to a total of ninety-­two persons. Because of the death of their master, these wretched people were sold to pay the debts of the very man who had enslaved them.44 It is obvious that Patrocínio had a personal vendetta against slavery that went beyond ideology; he knew its horrors from first-­hand experience. He was aware of the abuse that his mother had faced from his father. He also saw the connection between race and slavery, because he realized that free blacks could at any moment be turned into slaves, and after slavery ended, Patrocínio learned that black people would continue to face the viciousness of racism. Also, because of his support for Queen Isabella after slavery ended, he came under scrutiny and was attacked: Seeing that they could not beat me on principles, because I had a past of firmness and intransigence, whereas they had the saddest history of misrepresentations, the duo Rangel and Quintino resorted to defamation. They declared me a traitor to the Republic, and since they know that I am poor and I am black, they sold me to the government. Already immediately on the abolition of slavery, without any word of what my future political plans were my friends had already sold the day before like I was already the last black man sold.45 Indeed, after slavery ended, Patrocínio was even physically attacked on the night of May 3, 1900 by the son of the senatorial candidate for Mato Grosso, the politician José Maria Metello. According to Patrocínio, the candidate had fraudulently won his senate election in Mato Grosso. Therefore, Patrocínio had called for a new election. When the senator’s son saw him, one of Patrocínio’s biographers claimed, he was attacked with a whip, like slaves were whipped during the recent ages of slavery.46 Patrocínio was also attacked after Queen Isabella ended slavery in 1888. He defended her and the monarchy and was often accused of supporting capoeira,

22   Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift which was illegal and considered punishable with time in jail. According to the newspaper, Juvenal was unfair, quite unfair. José do Patrocínio is not a capoeira player in his habits of man, not even a capoeira player in his style as a journalist, but as Juvenal has suggested. José de Patrocínio is a fighter. Lucta today for the truth of the republican ideal, for its achievement, with the same interest, the same love with which for many years he fought for the freedom of his race.47 Therefore, his perceived Eurocentric worldview should not be held against Patrocínio, as we should not hold the Eurocentric worldview of an early Du Bois, who espoused the talented 10 percent ideology,48 and the actions of Frederick Douglass, who made fun of black root traditions, whose second wife was white, and who had a white mistress, against them.49 He ultimately wanted Brazil to be an inclusive society where all men regardless of color were free. Many white abolitionists were ambivalent toward blacks. They argued for the end of slavery but did not have full confidence in the Afro-­Brazilians becoming full citizens. Many abolitionists argued that slavery was dangerous to whites. One Brazilian writer wrote that slavery was bad because it caused whites to be lazy and unproductive and retarded the nation technologically.50 This writer had no concern for what slavery had done to the slaves. Another example of this ambivalence can be found in a statement by the white abolitionist José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, who said, “If Negroes are men like us, and do not constitute a separate race of irrational animals … what a picture of sorrow and misery do they not exhibit to the feeling and Christian mind.”51 Even Joaquim Nabuco, Brazil’s leading abolitionist, was simultaneously passionately against slavery but ambivalent about race. He was a chief proponent of European immigration, not only because he believed that immigrants would provide cheap labor, but also because they were white. He was also adamant about restricting non-­Europeans from entering Brazil.52 I am not suggesting that the black abolitionists were somehow more noble and humane than their white counterparts, but rather that all Brazilian abolitionists, blacks and whites alike, were products of a time in which ideas of white supremacy were in vogue. It was a common belief in North America and Europe that Europeans were biologically superior to all other races. The difference was that people of African and indigenous ancestry felt the daily assaults on their humanity. For example, The way Republicans on May 14 are directing the propaganda against the existing institutions, has provoked in all parts of the country the greatest indignation. Denaturated sacred ideal of the Republic, they use it as revenge against the monarchy, which they did not want and still cannot conform to the equality of all Brazilians. Against men of color are volcanic explosions of hate.53

Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift   23 However, Brazilians never accepted white supremacist notions in the way that elites in South Africa or the US did. Rather, liberals and conservatives embraced the whitening thesis, hoping to drown Brazil’s “problem” of blackness with a large dose of whiteness, in the form of European immigration.54 While the black abolitionists may have embraced some of the ideas of whitening, it is not clear that they wanted a phenotypically white Brazil. They wanted a modern Brazil that resembled France and England culturally, politically, and economically. However, it is clear that they did not hate their color. Gama most certainly was very proud of his blackness and harbored no “brain washing” of the white elite. Patrocínio and Rebouças were more conservative in this regard and both struggled with the colonial legacy of anti-­black racism. But, in the end, they both seemed to be reconciled with the idea that liberalism was for everyone, irrespective of race. It is true that people of African ancestry in the Americas have had limited understanding of Africa, but this should not be confused with self-­hatred. If this had been the case, then black abolitionists, such as Rebouças and Patrocínio, would not have so willingly embraced their African heritage, unlike many of their conservative counterparts who completely denied they had African heritage or, even more shamefully, continued to support and profit from slavery.55 Gama actively helped train ex-­slaves so they could be productive in modern society. As we will see, Andre Rebouças wrote a book on the subject, and before he died, “returned” to live in Africa.56 Patrocínio realized the humanity of black slaves and sought their freedom, and after slavery was past, he attempted to fight against color prejudice. Finally, all black people of visible African ancestry knew racism because of their color, although there was racial ambivalence among reformers in some cases. Most people of African ancestry in Brazil were not oblivious to the connections between slavery and racism and used the abolition movement as a strategy for creating a more egalitarian Brazil for all Afro-­Brazilians.

André Rebouças: Afro-­diasporic upliftment Another Afro-­Brazilian abolitionist, André Rebouças (1838–1898), was also engaged in the struggle against slavery and racism. He was a distinguished engineer, writer, intellectual, and businessman. Some of his major accomplishments were the development of a torpedo model used in the Paraguayan War and the construction of a railroad linking the state of Paraná to Mato Grosso do Sul. Also, he wrote several books that promoted political policy, but his passion became the fight to end slavery. Andre Rebouças’s father was of African ancestry, and his mother was of Portuguese descent. Moreover, his father, Antonio Rebouças (1798–1880), was a highly respected figure in Brazilian politics and was elected to a national political office equivalent to a congressman. He was a lawyer who did not attend law school but, like Luiz Gama, learned under the apprenticeship of another lawyer and became a highly respected rabula.57 However, unlike Luiz Gama, Antonio Rebouças was not a radical. He believed in the law and order of the day and was

24   Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift a supporter of the Empire. In fact, one of the ways he gained the respect of the Bahian elite was his support in putting down a radical revolt. He also fought against the revolt of Sabinada.58 He was a member of the conservative party. Although Rebouças’s father was the owner of slaves, he did gradually come to support the abolition of slavery. He was equivalent to a centrist in his politics in the sense that he did wish to do away with color restrictions that limited the mobility of people like himself and his family. Antonio Rebouças advocated a gradual ending of slavery and supported it in court as a lawyer fighting on the behalf of slaves so they could gain their freedom, but he was never an ardent abolitionist like his son. Yet, even though he adopted a strategy of moderate conservatism, this did not stop the father from experiencing racism. Spitzer has recounted that Antonio, when he obtained the prestigious position of secretary to the Governor of Sergipe, was charged with attempting to lead a conspiracy similar to that of Haiti to overthrow and massacre whites.59 All of these charges were false and, in fact, he had worked at length to prevent the white elite from thinking that he was a radical.60 But, because Brazil was a hierarchical racist society, there was no way for even a well-­liked and well-­connected person such as André Rebouças’s father to escape racism. White elites would never fully accept a person of color as their equal and thought they were either intellectually inferior or represented a threat of violence.  Antonio Rebouças’s main concern was not to overthrow the racial and socio-­ economic hierarchy but, ironically, he was not completely oblivious to how unjust the world was that he lived in. Perhaps this is why he fought for slaves that were illegally brought to Brazil after 1831.61 Also, this may be why he was against the death penalty, and in many ways, why he was not afraid to speak up on behalf of people of color to be treated in a way based on their merits. Yet, he worked within the legal system, even if that legal system supported slavery and was the basis of an unjust social hierarchy. He would die in 1880, eight years before the end of slavery and nine years before the collapse of the Empire, the Empire he loved and protected. His son would also be a defender of the royal family and the Empire of Brazil. In many ways, André Rebouças continued the family tradition of supporting the royal family and the liberal Empire in Brazil, while having an ambivalent relationship with it regarding issues of race and identity. However, Rebouças chose national identity over racial identity. He saw himself first and foremost as Brazilian. Nevertheless, he struggled with the question of a double identity, in the sense that he faced virulent racism as his father had. André and his brother Antonio Jr. proved themselves to be very talented and intellectually exceptional, yet they were often denied opportunity because they were colored men. One example was their being denied the ability to finish their studies in Europe. Another was the fact that André, though highly qualified, was paid one-­third the salary that had been offered a European who had the same skills, and the previous person with the position, who was paid more though he had no more experience or skills than André.62 Moreover, there were rumors and innuendoes constantly being spread about the Rebouçases that boiled down to jealousy and racial animosity.63

Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift   25 André and his brothers, Antonio Jr. and Jose, would all become successful engineers, although André and Antonio would become the most esteemed. However, it was André who would ultimately be the best known for his work as an ardent abolitionist. He started his career after he graduated with a degree in engineering in Rio de Janeiro, and with his brother Antonio he studied in France and England, though they were denied completion of their studies because of officials in the government who practiced discrimination.64 André Rebouças would eventually work on several projects with his brother and hold several esteemed positions in the Empire, even though he was philosophically and politically a liberal. He was a friend and great supporter of King Pedro, who was himself more liberal politically than the majority of the pro-­slavery landed elite. Dom Pedro freed all of his slaves by 1840, and he called for the gradual abolition of slavery. He envisioned a modern Brazil with roads, railroads, and better infrastructure.65 Rebouças seemed to have enormous ambivalence toward Africans, as did many other blacks in the middle class, and felt that African culture was inferior. However, he believed that, through proper training, people of African ancestry could be civilized and incorporated into society.66 He even wrote a book, Agricultura nacional: estudos economicos, which suggested how slaves could be incorporated into a post-­slavery society. Rebouças espoused the same uplift philosophy that was prevalent among educated blacks, no matter how progressive they were. The African-­Amer­ican leaders Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois were very Victorian in the way they viewed culture. They believed there was a “universal” approach to understanding culture. The black elite from the Americas looked to European models, which of course was logical considering that the black elite were educated in European institutions, but they were often far too ready to reject the folkways and mores that had sustained their own ancestors.67  Also, like Washington and Du Bois, Rebouças was dedicated to the upliftment of people of African descent. In fact, Rebouças moved to Africa with the hope of making it his home and to help his people. He once said: raise the Negro, cover his barbarous nudity, provide him with a piece of land, permit him to create a family by allowing him rural prosperity, accelerate his cerebral evolution through Well Being … teach him; instruct him, educate him in everything and with everything for the final fusion of the great Human Cosmos.68 However, the comparison of Rebouças to his Amer­ican counterparts, Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, can only go so far. Rebouças was not only a black leader but also a Brazilian leader, a member of Brazilian high society, who advocated for the inclusion of his people into the matrix of Brazilian society as an insider.69 He was engaged in an ideological conflict, between conservatism and liberalism, and the final outcome did have an effect on his socio-­economic status, as it did for Du Bois and Washington’s struggle; moreover, the struggle’s

26   Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift outcome would affect them personally. No matter how much they accomplished or how many degrees they obtained in society, they could never be part of the mainstream elite because of their color. However, in nineteenth-­century Brazil, unlike in the US, there was more room for social mobility for those who chose to distance themselves from their African heritage. Being a person who showed solidarity with other people of African ancestry could cost one one’s position in society. In the case of Rebouças, he seems to have had no desire to identify or actively engage with an identity that was in solidarity until he went to Africa.70 In all of his correspondence, he appears to only frame himself as part of an African diaspora in Africa. Indeed, many people of African ancestry were influenced by their trips to Africa, including Du Bois, Alexander Crummel, Martin Delaney, George Washington Williams, and others. In fact, while he was spending his last years in Africa attempting to reconcile his African identity with modernity, many African-­Amer­icans were engaging in Eurocentric and patronizing relationships with indigenous Africans from Liberia. It seems that André Rebouças was exploring the same approach in Africa. He desired to see the development in people of African ancestry of what in that era was call upliftment. In this respect he was like the North Amer­ican educator Booker T. Washington who held a very nationalistic identity that looked down on other national groups, including blacks, but believed they could over time be civilized and uplifted. In other words, Rebouças was one of the African descendants in the African diaspora who saw people of African ancestry as backward but, like many black elites in the Atlantic world, was dependent on patronage from white elites. In fact André Rebouças’s family depended on patronage from a white elite, in this case the royal monarchy. In fact, abolitionists like André Rebouças had a particular stake in ending slavery, but as the historian Richard Graham wrote some fifty years ago, they wanted more than ending slavery––they wanted to change the economic structure of Brazil to modernize it.71 Therefore, Rebouças put modernity before race in the hope that the question of race in Brazil would become irrelevant. Booker T. Washington also bought into the racialist gender understanding of men but thought that, through hard work over time, people of African ancestry could attain equality.72 He thought that the upliftment of blacks could happen and did not attempt to combat segregation from a frontal position. He thought that, by training and educating African-­Amer­icans in trades and practical skills, people of African ancestry could be independent of whites. Indeed, many of the buildings of Tuskegee University were created by the students, as was much of the food they ate. Washington, in some ways, has come under criticism because of his embrace of a type of modernity based uncritically on capitalism, and as being one that did not deal directly with the apartheid system that was emerging formally in the Amer­ ican north and south in the form of ghettos.73 However, others would argue that Washington was pragmatic and looking to use strategies that could best advance the African-­Amer­ican community. Rebouças, one could argue, sincerely believed in the idea of rural democracy. This idea was his biggest intellectual contribution to Brazil but, unfortunately, it

Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift   27 was completely ignored. It was the idea that land reform had to happen in Brazil, and there needed to be a complete democratization of Brazil. His main ideas can be summed up as follows: 1. Religious freedom and freedom of trade: immigrants should be free to practice their religion. 2. Personal liberty: guarantees of freedom and independence as a citizen; “its situation was not admitted in Brazil, neither enslaved nor servant of the plot nor settler subject to the draconian contract of rent of services; the free, independent immigrant, owner of his plot of land––Rural Democracy in the propaganda formula.” 3. Fraternization with immigrants for the purpose of integrating them into Brazilian society: with this objective, the society should act in such a way as to avoid the existence of prejudice against the immigrant in any form. It was part of this policy propaganda defending what Rebouças called “great naturalization,” i.e., the right of foreigners to become Brazilian citizens. 4. Abolition of the land monopoly of “landlordism or farmerism,” which should be done by creating small properties through the following practical measures: (a) development of a land registry, (b) the mortgaging of farms to banks and the organization of lots of land for immigrants and Brazilians, (c) expropriations of the railroad, banks, and the subsequent distribution of this land in small lots, (d) the adoption of the Torrens Act to facilitate the granting of deed of small property, thus avoiding litigation and suspicions about land tenure; elaboration of a land registry in order to make it easier to transfer title to property by endorsement, (e) land tax based on “acreage rather than land rent” in order to avoid the “perpetuity of the latifundia” and also “the iniquitous export tax,” and (f ) adoption of the homestead or inviolability of the built hut and land that had been cultivated by the immigrant or national and the eviction of formerly abandoned land owners and unproductive latifundia, as long as they take over these productive lands. The same policy was also directed to those lands belonging to the State, the so-­called “vacant lands.”74 Rebouças’s proposals were meant to create growth and economic advancement for Brazil, not just for a small class of latifundios. His proposals, unlike those of Booker T. Washington, were not dependent solely on the benevolence of a small industrial class. Rebouças’s programs were based on structural economic changes that not only involved self-­help but dealt with reforms that would allow for Brazilians of all colors to be integrated into society. Also, instead of pitting immigrants against native Brazilians who were disproportionately of

28   Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift color, his plan sought to encourage immigrants to work side by side with native Brazilians. Rebouças understood that the end of slavery was not sufficient to modernize Brazil. Land reform was crucial in Brazil and was one area where major landowners were not willing to compromise. Major landowners were not happy to end slavery, but they could live with that because the end of slavery did not end the socio-­economic reality in any substantial way. The planters saw that, by the late 1880s, slavery was no longer tenable. Slaves were revolting en masse and had critical support from the urban masses. Several states, such as Ceará, Rio Grande do Sur, Amazonas, and Bahia, all ended slavery before 1888. If the planters did not end slavery, they were faced with an untenable situation, the possibility of the overthrow of the Empire not in favor of their interest but in the interest of the masses. Also, after slavery, the momentum was in favor of radical abolition. However, a compromise was made. It was that slavery would end, and all people of African ancestry would have equal rights under the law. However, having equal rights under the law was essentially meaningless because racial and economic hierarchies were mainly left in place.75 In order to ensure this would be the case, land reform would not be allowed to happen in Brazil.76 Mass education remained a farce.77 There would be no major literacy campaigns in Brazil after slavery; also, no major labor laws were introduced to protect workers’ rights.  Rebouças responded to the overthrow of the monarchy by going into exile with the monarchy and later moving to several places in Africa. In 1898, nine years after the official date of the end of slavery, Rebouças was reported to have committed suicide. Although it is not clear if Rebouças did commit suicide, what we do know is that his socio-­economic agenda for Brazil did not happen.

Conclusion In the cases of Luiz Gama, José Patrocínio, and André Rebouças, they were all reformers, and what they were most interested in was reforming the society by ending slavery. Although ending slavery did not end racism or end racial and class hierarchies in Brazil, it was obviously an important moment in Brazilian history, and these three men as activists and public intellectuals were seminal in helping to end slavery. However, it is clear from the writings of all three that ending slavery was also an attempt to smash the racial hierarchical system of Brazil. All these men were against racial hierarchy and saw themselves as equals in Brazilian society. Nevertheless, none of them had autonomy and they all tried to work within the political system of the era. Gama was never satisfied with any political parties in Brazil and found them all wanting. His approach was to use the established system to undermine the legitimacy of slavery legally and to work as an activist and opinion writer. José Patrocínio was also an activist, an opinion writer, and publisher. However, Patrocínio and Rebouças were tied to the monarchy. In the case of Patrocínio, he was also tied to an elite family; in fact, it was his white father-­in-law who lent him the money to buy the newspaper he owned.

Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift   29

Notes   1 See Aline Helg, Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia, 1770–1835 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005).   2 The book was first published in French as Frantz Fanon, Peau Noire, Masques Blancs (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1952), and in English as Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask (New York: Grove Press, 1967).   3 It is important to remember that, in the late nineteenth century, it was not uncommon for people of color to suffer from a Eurocentric perspective. Even the radical W. E. B. Du Bois, whom many credit as the father of Pan-­Africanism, was very Eurocentric at this time and embraced the elitist idea of the talented tenth; in other words, the African-­Amer­ican masses should be led by an educated elite. Du Bois had studied in Germany in hopes he would return properly cultured. Even black majority countries, such as Jamaica and Haiti, suffered from a Eurocentric bias that lasted until the twentieth-­century black power movements. See the Jamaican scholar Stuart Hall’s autobiographical analysis of this type of Eurocentric outlook: David Morley and Kuan-­Hsing Chen, eds., Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 1996), 484–489.   4 Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask, 67.   5 Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask, 67.   6 See Laurent Du Bois, Haiti: The Aftershocks of History (New York: Picador/­ Metropolitan Books, 2013). This history documents the Haitian revolution but more important it shows the struggles and challenges after the revolution.   7 Carl N. Degler, Neither Black Nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986). Even in more recent times, this could be demonstrated in the so-­called paper bag test that determined entrance into many black organizations. For example, the superstar singer Beyoncé’s father relates a story that blacks were denied entry into Fisk University unless they were fair-­skinned, and confesses his own struggles with colorism, though he is, ironically, dark-­skinned and was only allowed in because of his athletic ability, basically sharing the same kinds of experiences that Stuart Hall suffered with his family.   8 Dorothy B. Porter, “The Negro in the Brazilian Abolition Movement,” The Journal of Negro History 37, no. 1 (1952): 59.   9 Porter, “The Negro”; Robert Edgar Conrad, Children of God’s Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 401. Also see Joao Jose Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). 10 Katia M. De Queiros Mattoso, To Be a Slave in Brazil: 1550–1888 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986), 139. Also, for a brief description of quilombos and Palmares, see Stuart Schwartz, Slaves, Peasants and Rebels (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 122–125. 11 See Jose Hontrio Rodrigues, Brazil and Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965). 12 George Reid Andrews, Blacks and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888–1988 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991); Sam Adamo, “Race and Povo,” in Modern Brazil: Elites and Masses in Historical Perspectives, eds. Michael Conniff and Frank McCann (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989). 13 A. J. R. Russell Wood, The Black Man in Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil (London: Macmillan Press, 1982), 188. 14 Russell Wood, The Black Man in Slavery and Freedom, 69. 15 One major reason Pardo freedmen were more likely to rise socio-­economically was because they were descendants of the slave master. H. S. Klein and C. A. Paiva, “Freedmen in a Slave Economy: Minas Gerais in 1831,” Journal of Social History 29, no. 4 (1996), 933–962. 

30   Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift 16 G. Reginald Daniel, Machado De Assis: Multiracial Identity and the Brazilian Novelist (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012). 17 See Rebecca Baird Bergstresser, “The Movement for the Abolition of Slavery in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1880–1889” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1973), 161; “Mulatos e negros escravocratas,” A Redenção, September 25, 1887, quoted in Célia Maria Marinho de Azevedo, Onda negra, medo branco: o negro no imaginário das elites—século XIX (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1987), 224; Thomas E. Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought, with a Preface to the 1993 edition and Bibliography (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005). 18 “Francisco Paulo de Almeida Barão de Guaraciaba: Um Negro e Sua Rede de Sociabilidade na Fundação do Banco de Crédito Real de Minas Gerais,” PDF, accessed January 8, 2019, https://docplayer.com.br/51783921-Francisco-­paulo-de-­almeidabarao-­de-guaraciaba-­um-negro-­e-sua-­rede-de-­sociabilidade-na-­fundacao-do-­bancode-­credito-real-­de-minas-­gerais.html. 19 F. B. de Oliveira (April 13, 2013), Brasil Colônia: O Protagonismo Negro na Escravidão. Retrieved from https://felipebraga.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/brasil-­ colc3b4nia-protagonismo-­negro-na-­escravidc3a3o-2.pdf. 20 David T. Haberly, Three Sad Races: Racial Identity and National Consciousness in Brazilian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 99–104. 21 Klein and Paiva, “Freedmen in a Slave Economy: Minas Gerais in 1831.”  22 Katia Mattoso, To Be a Slave, 1550–1888, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986). 23 Bonilla-­Silva, Racism without Racists. 24 Bonilla-­Silva, Racism without Racists, 103. 25 Bonilla-­Silva, Racism without Racists. 26 Skidmore, Black into White, 124–144. 27 Dorothy Porter, “The Negro in the Brazilian Abolition Movement,” Journal of Negro History 1 (1952): 54–80; also, see Sud Mennucci, o precursor do abolicionismo no Brasil, Luis Gama (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1938). 28 Zelbert Moore, “Luíz Gama, Abolition and Republicanism in São Paulo, Brazil, 1870–1888” (unpublished doctoral diss., Temple University, Philadelphia, 1978). 29 Moore, “Luíz Gama,” 45–49. 30 Moore, “Luíz Gama,” 45–49. 31 Moore, “Luíz Gama,” 48. 32 Moore, “Luíz Gama,” 48. 33 Moore, “Luíz Gama,” 83. 34 For a fine collection of primary documents on slavery and race relations, see Robert Edgar Conrad, Children of God’s Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 229–231. 35 Moore, “Luíz Gama,” 166. 36 Moore, “Luíz Gama,” 184; (no author) Correiro Paulistano, 11 de Janeiro de 1887, 3. 37 Uelinton Farias Alves, José do Patrocínio: a imorredoura cor do bronze (Rio de Janeiro: Garamond, 2009). 38 Alves, José do Patrocínio, 67. 39 Alves, José do Patrocínio, 118. 40 Apulco de Castro, Corsário, February 9, 1881. 41 Haberly, Three Sad Races, 102. 42 See David Brookshaw, Race and Color in Brazilian Literature (Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1986), 30. 43 Rita de Cássia Azevedo Ferreira de Vasconcelos, “Republica Sim, Escravidão Não: O Republicanismo de José do Patrocínio e Sua Vivência na República” (Master’s thesis, Federal University of Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, 2011), 88. 44 Robert Edgar Conrad, A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 464–465.

Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift   31 45 Ferreira de Vasconcelos, “Republica Sim,” 88. 46 Raimundo Magalhães, A vida turbulenta de José do Patrocínio (Rio de Janeiro: Sabiá, 1969). 47 Ferreira de Vasconcelos, “Republica Sim,” 87. 48 See David L. Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 (New York: H. Holt, 1993), 288–291. 49 Frederick Douglass was clearly preoccupied with the political rights of African-­Amer­icans and remains one of the major African-­Amer­ican leaders of his generation and the nineteenth century in general. However he came under enormous criticism for marrying a white woman and for what was perceived as his Eurocentric understanding of black religious practices as pertained to his discussion of Sandy in his memoir: Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An Amer­ican Slave, Written by Himself, eds. William L. Andrews and William S. McFeely (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997), 75. For Frederick Douglass’s enormous contribution to promoting human rights for African-­Amer­icans see David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018). 50 See David T. Haberly, “Abolitionism in Brazil: Anti-­Slavery and Anti-­Slave,” Luso-­ Brazilian Review 9–10 (1972–73): 32. 51 Haberly, “Abolitionism in Brazil,” 32. 52 Skidmore, Black into White, 21. 53 Flavio Gomes, “No Meio das Águas Turvas (racismo e cidadania no alvorecer da República: a Guarda Negra na Corte ¾ 1888–1889),” Estudos Afro-­Asiáticos 21 (1991): 66. 54 Please note that I am not suggesting that Brazilians were not influenced by white supremacy; on the contrary, they were very influenced by these ideas. However, they did not adopt the segregationist policies of the US or South Africa; see Skidmore, Black into White; Anthony W. Marx, Making Race, Making Nations: A Comparison of South Africa, the United States, and Brazil (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); and Howard Winant, The World Is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy since World War II (New York: Basic Books, 2001). 55 It is important to understand that one can embrace one’s ancestry without embracing one’s cultural heritage. Culture is not static; it is an ongoing process that changes from generation to generation. 56 Leo Spitzer, Lives in Between: The Experience of Marginality in a Century of Emancipation (New York: Hill and Wang, 1999).  57 Leo Spitzer, Lives in Between: Assimilation and Marginality in Austria, Brazil, and West Africa, 1780–1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 58 Spitzer, Lives; also, see Alexandro Dantas Trindade, “André Rebouças: da engenharia civil à engenharia social” (Ph.D. thesis, State University of Campinas, 2004). 59 Spitzer, Lives. 60 Spitzer, Lives. 61 Hebe Mattos, “André Rebouças e o Pós-abolição: Entre a África e o Brasil …,” accessed January 10, 2019, www.snh2013.anpuh.org/resources/anais/27/1364674765_ ARQUIVO_HebeMattos_anpuh.pdf. 62 Spitzer, Lives. 63 Spitzer, Lives. 64 Spitzer, Lives, 146. Spitzer confirms this information from Rebouças’s personal diaries. See André Pinto Rebouças, Anna Flora Verissimo, and Inacio José Verissimo, Diário e Notas Autobiográficas; Texto Escolhido e Anotações. Coleçao Documentos Brasileiros, No. 49 (Rio de Janeiro: J. Olympio, 1938).  65 It is important to note that Rebouças had influence with Dom Pedro. 66 Spitzer, Lives, 151; and Mattos, “André.” 67 See Cornel West’s poignant essay on W. E. B. Du Bois. In it, he dissects the elitist and Eurocentric worldview of Du Bois. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cornel West, The Future of the Race (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1996), 53–112.

32   Nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian uplift 68 See Spitzer, Lives, 151. 69 Again Rebouças faced prejudice. See Spitzer, Lives, 146; and Trindade, “André Rebouças,” 50. 70 Trindade, “André Rebouças,” 50. 71 Richard Graham, “Causes for the Abolition of Negro Slavery in Brazil: An Interpretive Essay,” The Hispanic Amer­ican Historical Review 46, no. 2 (1966): 123–137. 72 The idea of racial uplift is also gendered in that it is based on the idea of patriarchy and a heterosexual family. See Kevin Kelly Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012).  73 See W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015). 74 André Pinto Rebouças, Agricultura nacional, estudos econômicos: propaganda abolicionista e democrática, Setembro de 1874 a Setembro de 1883 (Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Editora Massangana, 1988), IX. 75 Ferreira de Vasconcelos, “Republica Sim.”  76 Warren Dean, “Latifundia and Land Policy in Nineteenth-­Century Brazil,” The ­Hispanic Amer­ican Historical Review 51, no. 4 (1971): 606–625. 77 According to one study, officially there were about 10,000 people receiving a secondary education in Brazil by 1871 and only 150,000 receiving a primary education, out of a population of 10,000,000. See Thomas Lynn Smith, Brazil, People and Institutions (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1946), 547.

2 Black Brazilian protest from an African diasporic perspective during the First Republic and early Vargas era

In 1888, Brazil was the last country in the western hemisphere to end slavery. However, Brazil, like all societies that formerly had African slavery in the Americas, maintained socio-­economic inequality where people of African ancestry disproportionately remained at the bottom of the society.1 In fact, by the early twentieth century, Western European countries had divided up Africa, with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia.2 In these countries, how racism and discrimination operated varied by country; nevertheless, they were central issues for people of African ancestry all over the Atlantic world.3 At first glance, one might think the end of the Brazilian Empire (1822–1889) would have represented a pivotal moment for Afro-­Brazilians, as far as the hope of ending racial inequality. After all, slavery had ended, and there were a number of people of African ancestry who had had success in Brazil, and the new republic had no explicit laws prohibiting blacks from joining the ranks as full-­ fledged citizens. However, in reality, people of notable African ancestry often faced a great deal of racial discrimination. There were social barriers, job discrimination, and housing discrimination, and they were often prohibited from socializing in parks and other social spaces, such as ice-­skating rinks.4 These forms of social exclusion occurred in a different context in Brazil. For example, in the northeast of Brazil, people of African ancestry, such as “negroes” or “pardos,” made up the majority of the population, but social exclusion still existed even where people of color were the majority. Even in these areas, whites identified as elites had economic and political control. Therefore, the end of slavery did not end social inequality based on race and class. The rise of the First Republic (1889–1930) merely transformed the society into a society that continued to maintain socio-­economic inequality. In this chapter, I argue that people of African ancestry were not in solidarity with one another; rather, they were intrigued by one another but were not unified. In other words, for the people of African ancestry, whether in Cuba, Brazil, or other places inhabited by members of the African diaspora, there was not a language of solidarity. People of African ancestry were deeply interested in the wide range of their own subgroups, such as Afro-­Brazilians, Afro-­Cubans, and African-­Amer­icans, and wrote about each other in their newspapers and were not beyond influencing each other’s ideas, but their main struggle was one of

34   Black Brazilian protest inclusion into their respective nations as equals, not the cause of African solidarity.5 I will contextualize Brazil’s most important post-­slavery protest movements of the early twentieth century, particularly before World War II, with a focus on 1889 to 1937. How did people of African ancestry fight color-­blind racism? How did they fight whitening? Also, I will further develop the dichotomy of intrigue versus solidarity in the African diaspora by examining how black Amer­icans viewed Brazil in this time period. This chapter looks at the strategies of Manuel Querino, who was a leader in Bahia and was representative of the fight against white supremacy that contested Eurocentric ideology and that, moreover, formulated a strategy to contest white supremacy economically. I compare and contrast him with the Frente Negra Brasiliera (FNB), an organization that emerged in São Paulo, where people of African ancestry were a minority but became one of the most important black protest groups of that era. I show that people of African ancestry were fighting color-­blind racism using many of the same approaches that blacks were using in the US. Therefore, there was a transnational perspective, and there was a network of exchanges that existed and allowed Afro-­Brazilians to act transnationally. In other words, these networks were not necessarily dedicated to forging Afro-­diasporic identities. They were used only to promote ways to become further integrated into their particular nations. In Brazil, this integration was primarily concerned with the struggle to combat color-­blind racism.

Background of the First Republic It was during the early twentieth century that white supremacy in Brazil was at its apogee during the First Republic (1889–1930), in the sense that there was a wide consensus among writers and politicians that Brazil needed to modernize and that one of the ways of doing this was European immigration. Moreover, there were intellectuals, such as Francisco Oliveira Viana (1883–1951) and Raimundo Nina Ramos (1862–1906), who believed that people of African ancestry were biologically inferior. They proposed European immigrants to actively displace Afro-­Brazilians on the coffee plantations, as well as in urban areas.6 The planter class specifically desired European immigration for several reasons. First, the planters and intellectuals embraced white supremacist ideas that Afro-­Brazilians were biologically inferior to Europeans, as well as lazy and unwilling to work,7 instead of acknowledging that ex-­slaves were not willing to accept the same basic conditions of slavery. In other words, slaves were no longer willing to allow their families to face the same degradation as they had previously and strongly resisted putting their children and wives to work in those same horrid conditions.8 In order to combat the ex-­slave community’s demand for basic human rights, the elites and the planter class encouraged new immigrants, including many Italians, who were willing to work for low wages and were willing to put all members of the family to work.9 This leads on to the second reason why the planters wanted immigrants: they wanted the supply to

Black Brazilian protest   35 exceed the demand for workers. In other words, they wanted a marketplace that was advantageous to the planters (employers), not the libertos (ex-­slaves). In a competitive marketplace, they did not have to placate their ex-­slave population with higher salaries and more benefits. However, it must be emphasized that anti-­black sentiment was also a major reason why Afro-­Brazilians were denied employment opportunities. Even when Afro-­Brazilians were competitive with European immigrants, European immigrants were preferred. This behavior was not limited to São Paulo; it occurred wherever mass migration was happening.10 Just as in the US, different regions had different types of racial realities. In places like Bahia and the northeast of Brazil, where people of African ancestry were the majority of the population, they did not face the same kind of competition from European immigrant groups as was the case in São Paulo, because European immigrants in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century went to the most dynamic regions in Brazil, mainly São Paulo and, to a lesser extent, Rio de Janeiro. However, they continued to face the hierarchical society that existed during slavery, a society in which they were disproportionately at the bottom. As in all of Brazil, there always existed a small minority of people of African ancestry who were able to climb the hierarchy, but the majority could not. For example, people of color in Brazil who secured patronage and who were not visibly too black were allowed social mobility in what Carl Degler has rightfully called the “mulatto escape hatch.” For example, people of African ancestry had reached the position of Supreme Court justice in Brazil: in 1907, Pedro Lessa was appointed and remained in the position until 1921, and from 1917 to 1931, it was occupied by Hermenegildo de Barros. During the time they were justices, they had to keep their African ancestry a secret or downplay it. As one scholar has shown in the case of Hermenegildo, he spoke of his African ancestry as a source of shame.11 From 1890 to 1896, the governor of Amazonas was a person of African ancestry by the name of Eduardo Gonçalves Ribeiro (1862–1900). He was born in Maranhão, and he also downplayed his African ancestry and, if possible, always identified as white. Moreover, the way to insult him was to suggest he was of African ancestry.12 Also, Nilo Procópio Peçanha, who reached the level of the presidency, had African ancestry. His father was a dark-­skinned mulatto, and his grandmother was black.13 Peçanha was often attacked because of his African ancestry. In fact, although Peçanha was a distinguished person, his mother-­in-law never accepted him marrying her daughter, and the marriage was a social scandal in his wife’s family.14 It was in this context that racism functioned in Brazil. Persons of mixed African ancestry could reach the heights of the socio-­economic ladder through the so-­called mulatto escape hatch as long as they distanced themselves from the majority who by and large were of African ancestry. Therefore, the time of the First Republic in Brazil (1889–1930) was a period that, in some ways, was even worse for the free class of Afro-­Brazilians than it had been during the age of the Brazilian Empire. Paradoxically, people of African ancestry, who themselves

36   Black Brazilian protest often faced racism, engaged in distancing themselves from blackness to maintain individual privilege. In many ways during the age of the First Republic this phenomenon seemed only to worsen not improve, at least among a small group of Afro-­descended elites. However, this strategy employed by people of African ancestry was a conservative strategy and did not represent the full range of strategies that people of African ancestry used to engage in full citizenship in a post-­ slavery society. Moreover, even in the case of places like Bahia where most people were of African ancestry, they were not able to participate in democracy because they were not allowed to vote. In the constitution of 1891, all illiterates were disenfranchised. Also, it is telling that these restrictions were clearly stated in the constitution in 1891 at the beginning of the First Republic of Brazil (1889–1930). During the Empire, small landowners had access to suffrage, and, as a percentage of the total number of voters, this allowed more people of color to be eligible for the vote because there was a rather large population of small landowners of African ancestry. Also, the illiteracy rate during the Empire was never below 85% among the free. Immediately after the abolition of slavery, Brazil had a population of approximately ten million, of whom only about 110,000 were in school. In other words, very few people in Brazil could read or write and were thus eligible to vote.15 Therefore, even though a large segment of the population consisted of those of African ancestry, this did not necessarily signify any political advantages for them. Also, the 1891 constitution prohibited immigrants from Africa, and in São Paulo there was a definite attempt to pursue European immigrants in what has become known as whitening. The project of whitening Brazil has a long history of political elites and intellectual elites pursuing a strategy that presented Brazil as a country that, if it was not white, it was one that was becoming white.16 In many cases, the Brazilian government and cultural elites went to great lengths to promote Brazil as a white nation or, at least, one that was on the road to becoming such a nation. This lie was cultivated on several levels. During the First Republic (1889–1930), this took place by masking the extent of Brazil’s African and indigenous heritages. Outside of places with undeniable blackness, such as Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, there was an effort to render African and indigenous populations invisible. An example of this can be seen in a New York Times letter to the editor that was written on December 31, 1913 by Dr. De Moreira, an elite businessman from Brazil. He was displeased with W. E. Carson, an Amer­ican New York Times journalist who had presumed the blackness of much of Brazil. Dr. De Moreira wrote, “There is only one city in Brazil in which Negro blood predominates and that is Bahia.” Dr. De Moreira had also written in the Times article that “Mr. Carson gave the impression that a good part of the population of Brazil was made up of negroes or men with negro blood in their veins.” In another letter to the editor of the Times some years later, the blatant anxiety about race among white Brazilian elites was articulated in a more sophisticated manner but was nevertheless apparent. In the Times on January 31, 1921, a representative of the

Black Brazilian protest   37 Brazilian embassy also argued that Brazil was not a country of foreigners and of blacks but rather that Portuguese represented the largest demographic of the country. The letter stated: Brazil was once a Portuguese colony, and the great majority of her people are of Portuguese ancestry. It is estimated that about 12 percent of the population are Negroes. These are concentrated largely in the four central states San Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Geraes, and Bahia especially the latter. In the states of the north of Bahia and particularly in the two great states to the Amazon valley, Para and the Amazonas, the negro element is so small as to be negligible.17 Interestingly, completely ignored were people of indigenous ancestry, and it is also strange how the Brazilian embassy also reduced people of African ancestry to 12%. The strategic silence around people with indigenous ancestry and the low calculation of people of African ancestry were a sleight of hand because it presumably distinguished between negro and pardo. In Brazil, there has always been a distinction between people of mixed ancestry and “pure blacks.” The problem was this: slaves were often pardo, and they often faced the same socio-­economic conditions as pure blacks. In fact, by the end of slavery, most slaves in many provinces of the era, such as the northeast state of Ceará, were counted in the local census as pardo.18 Also, there are many academic studies that have shown that pardos faced racial discrimination at roughly the same rates as negros or pure blacks, particularly if they were of visible African ancestry.19 However, more important is that the writer does not even mention the pardo category. He passes off the pardo category, in this case, as if the pardos were white.20 At least, this is implied because clearly the vast majority of Brazilians in the north and northeast had native Amer­ican and African ancestry, as well as Portuguese ancestry, but in this letter, the African and indigenous ancestry was rendered invisible with one stroke of the pen. Therefore, people of African ancestry were excluded from the national project by a blatant denial of their very existence, not through an apartheid system or laws of segregation, as in the US and South Africa, nor as a result of being formally colonized as much of Africa had been in the earlier centuries. The practice of whitening and the prohibition of blacks’ access to the ballot box were tantamount to a form of color-­blind racism, in the sense that there were no laws that were explicitly predicated on citizens of African ancestry who were born in Brazil but that the constitution reflected a distinct disinterest in receiving more black immigrants because of racism. While people of African ancestry in Brazil were not ostensibly excluded from voting on the grounds of their race, and there were many examples of people of African ancestry who were allowed to vote, the reality was that only a small elite would have access to the ballot box; therefore, the majority of the population had no real democratic redress. Thus, strategies of inclusion in a society where laws were not the problem, but the problems stemmed from other factors, had to be addressed and reformulated in other ways.

38   Black Brazilian protest

Manuel Querino and his two-­front struggle By the 1870s, many of the black brotherhoods of Rosário were no longer the only organizations engaging in mutual aid for the black community. For example, in Bahia, a strong labor movement had evolved. In addition to this labor movement, there were spaces in places like Bahia that celebrated Afro-­ derived culture in Brazil. Bahia was the place in Brazil where these traditions were the strongest. However, lost in these discussions was the push for an economic agenda as well. The person who most exemplified both currents was Manuel Querino (1851–1923). Querino was born in Santo Amaro, Bahia of parents who were born free and black. However, his parents would die in a cholera epidemic that claimed over 15,000 people when he was a young boy. Querino had the great fortune of being adopted by a prominent professor, Manuel Correia Garcia, at the age of 4. Garcia was a state deputy and professor at the state teacher training institution.21 As a result of being adopted, Querino was given an opportunity that more than 85% of the population did not have, which was to learn how to read and write. In 1868, as a young man, he was drafted into the army and fought in the Paraguayan War. Upon leaving the military, he returned to Bahia in 1871 and began to take art courses, as well as becoming an ardent abolitionist and a newspaper writer on issues of labor rights and the abolition of slavery. He also went on to become a distinguished union activist, a decorative painter, fine artist, and, eventually, a civil servant, holding various positions in Public Works and later in the Department of Agriculture. He was also elected to the City Council. However, his two most important contributions were his work as a union activist and his work as a writer. As a union activist, he was responsible for helping to coordinate a union called Liga Operária Baiana (1875) and the political party Operária Baiana (1890).22 Querino worked in partnership with other well-­known leaders from Bahia who were tailors, carpenters, and stone masons, and others who would be considered skilled blue-­collar workers. They organized a political party to fight for the social and political interests of the people of Bahia.23 Thus, on June 5, 1890, in the residence of the tailor Elisario Elisio da Cruz, fifty-­six artisans and workers assembled, according to Querino, “to organize the workers’ party, separated from the other parties and on their own to bring them to the Assembly, with its candidates.”24 Querino was part of the Republican movement and workers’ struggle for freedom, with the focus on inclusion of those who lived on the edges of society, mainly blacks and mulattos, who were deprived of a minimum wage, basic education, and basic human rights.25 They organized a political party to defend workers’ rights directly, without the interference of parties that did not necessarily share the interests of the workers.26 According to a study by A. S. Adrin Castellucci, of 1,176 of the party’s affiliates, he identified the color of 133 (11.3%) of the members. Of these, 32 (24.1%) were classified by the sources as white, 40 (30.1%) were defined as black, 20 (15.0%) as brown, and 41 (30.8%) as mestizos.27 If we believe that this sample is representative of the entity as a

Black Brazilian protest   39 whole, we have 75.9% of the affiliates belonging to non-­white groups. Therefore, it is most likely that the party was mainly composed of people of African ancestry.28 Also, in the nineteenth century, the people who were most likely to do work as artisans and blue-­collar workers were people of color.29 Unfortunately, the destinies of working-­class people were still tied to the goodwill and goodness of the “padrinhos,” in English the Godfathers, of the party, which limited the workers’ ability to structurally change anything.30 Political parties during the First Republic were organized in a society that remained overwhelmingly agrarian and conservative, in which the participation and voice of the popular classes were virtually nonexistent.31 It was particularly difficult to organize a political party representing workers’ rights when so many workers were excluded from voting. Querino entered politics at the beginning of the First Republic, when there was hope that the government could create beneficial changes in the society. In fact, there was a momentary convergence of the different classes.32 During the last days of the monarchy and the beginning of the First Republic, there was some need to have the wide support of all the people of the republic. With the monarchy ending slavery, there was hope that the major reforms of abolitionists would be enforced, but the interests of Querino and his allies, who truly represented the working class, and those who represented the elites were clearly different. As a result, Querino’s relationship to politics was precarious and was soon broken because of disputes, divergences, and conflicts that would put at risk personal interests and conveniences, but never around ideas and principles, especially in the electoral periods.33 In other words, Querino and his political party had very little opportunity to have any lasting impact in structurally changing the society at large. Nevertheless, he was a radical Republican and had a platform that called for a democracy that put the hopes and dreams of the worker at the heart of its goals. He also was weary of having close alliances in the party with old elites from the era of the Empire.34 Yet, he became a candidate for Federal Deputy for the Workers Party in 1890 and was elected delegate for this class at the Brazilian Workers’ Congress in Rio de Janeiro. However, this “party grouping composed only of workers, functioning in a disciplined manner” again raised the fears of the elite, especially the bosses and industrialists. Intimidated, the leader of the party, Gonçalo Espinheira, announced that the movement “did not think politics,” and the party was consequently renamed the Bahia Workers’ Center. Querino, the journalist and the politician, who was adept in his approach to promoting the workers’ incentives for professional education, must have enthusiastically approved this change. His journalistic campaign and his demonstrated leadership of the Workers Party were worthy of his appointment as a member or “Intendant” of the City Council, the first municipal legislature of the city of Salvador, in 1890 or 1891.35 According to Jorge Calmon, “He was appointed, between 1890 and 1891, to succeed one of the ‘Intendants’ initially chosen by the State Governor. He returned to be Municipal Councilor in 1897, replacing Dr. Deocleciano Ramos that resigned the mandate.” He lost the election to fill the vacancy left by the resignation but remained on the Council until December 26, 1899.36

40   Black Brazilian protest In reality, the success Querino did manage to achieve in the electoral sphere during this epoch was amazing, especially since the vast majority of workers in Brazil could not vote because they were illiterate and shut out of the political system after 1891. It was unusual for a black person to be a council member and have a major leadership position at that time. Unfortunately, his ideas were ahead of his time, and he was not able to actually create any systematic change. Also, unlike many Brazilians of all colors, Querino took seriously Afro-­ Brazilian religions, had respect for Candomblé, and, like his ancestors in the Catholic brotherhoods of Rosário, took Afro-­Brazilian carnivals seriously. In general, there was a large literary tradition that valued the traditions of people of African ancestry in the cultural matrix of Brazil. Querino was the first known black intellectual who wrote several books on the subject of the centrality of people of African ancestry in Brazil: As artes na Bahia—escorço de uma contribuição histórica (The Arts in Bahia: A Historical Contribution, 1909), Artistas Baianos (Bahian Artists, 1909), Bailes pastoris (Pastoral Dances, 1914), A Bahia de outrora vultos e fatos populares (Popular Figures and Facts of Bahia, 1916), A raça Africana e os seus costumes na Bahia (The African Race and Its Customs in Bahia, 1916), O colono preto como fator de civilização Brasileira (The Black Settler as a Factor of Brazilian Civilization, 1981), and A arte culinária na Bahia (The Art of Bahian Culinary, 1928), which was published posthumously. All of these works used anti-­racist language and did not deny the fact that people of African ancestry had played an essential role in the development of Brazil. His books O colono preto como fator de civilização Brasileira and A raça Africana e os seus costumes na Bahia explicitly made these claims. These books make it clear that Querino had a deep appreciation of how African history had played a major role in the development of people of African ancestry. Querino stated: Unquestionably, African fetishism exerted an essential influence on our customs, and we will be well paid if we gather our meager resources. They will help contribute to the study of our national psychosis in the individual and the society. We must take advantage of the opportunity that we have and protest against the unjust way they try to undermine the African by making him out to be savage and not fit which is common in all uneducated races.37 Clearly, Querino saw himself as a Brazilian and not as an African, but he did have what W. E. B. Du Bois would call double consciousness, as he was keenly aware of what was happening in Africa and the US. As Sabrina Gledhill has pointed out, he was an admirer of Booker T. Washington and the work he was doing to help his race.38 He said of Washington: Who does not know the adventures and the prestige of the great Amer­ican citizen Booker Washington, the educator emeritus, the consummate orator, the wise, the most genuine representative of the black race in the Amer­ican Union?

Black Brazilian protest   41 The struggle that nobly sustained the African element in Brazil with unparalleled heroism in favor of its freedom deserved the illustrious patrician writer of these memorable concepts.39 Given the opportunity, there could have been a possibility of collaboration. Washington was very aware of what was happening in the Atlantic world and keen on cultural and economic trade among people of color. He had Asian, African, and Latin Amer­ican students who attended his classes at Tuskegee University, and Bahia was on his radar.40 In the end, what made Querino so interesting was his rejection of whitening. He rejected and denounced the work of people like Nina Raimundo Rodrigues and Francisco Oliveira Viana. He also objected to the poor conditions of the workers who overwhelmingly were people of color. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, Querino had abandoned politics, most likely because there was no actual way for him to be effective unless he was willing to be completely subservient to a kind of patronage politics. The radicalism that he represented was neutralized. Moreover, by the time he retired from politics, his base of power had been effectively weakened, and it was unlikely he would have ever won any position of significance. As a result, Querino turned from class forms of struggle, directly confronted racism in Brazil, and contradicted the anti-­black writings of the day. Indeed, he rejected the rhetoric of whitening the country. Also, he supported the rights of laborers and mass education. He was clearly very progressive for his era.

Black social clubs and the making of black political solidarity In the nineteenth century, one of the major forms of black solidarity was the black brotherhoods of Rosário, which existed throughout Brazil. These fraternities were known for developing collectives for blacks to have proper burials and to free slaves and were known for their King of Congo ceremonies that integrated the history of Africa within the context of the Catholic religion. Also, in the final years of slavery, several of these fraternities were active in organizing protests against slavery.41 However, by the end of slavery, black social clubs had also become prominent in major urban areas of Brazil. These social clubs were mainly ways for people of African ancestry to socialize and engage in the community without being ostracized. Nevertheless, although people of African ancestry in the northeast of Brazil did engage in acts of racial solidarity, the black brotherhoods in Bahia, particularly in Rosário, continued to exist, and as various scholars have documented, black solidarity existed in the realms of black culture and black religion.42 Therefore, it was no accident that the most explicit politicized black organization, Frente Negra Brasileira, would be formed in São Paulo. In the early twentieth century, São Paulo was clearly the place where Afro-­Brazilians most probably faced virulent forms of discrimination on a day-­to-day basis. It was the

42   Black Brazilian protest only state that had a subsidized program to encourage immigrants’ passages to Brazil. This program was highly successful in swelling the labor force and effectively marginalized the Afro-­Brazilian population in explicit socio-­ economic terms.43 Two Afro-­Brazilians who lived during this period summed up the Afro-­ Brazilian dilemma: There were almost as many blacks as Italians in those days, in São Paulo, [but] they lived in a state of total disintegration … The immigrants were in the factories and in commerce. The only work left for the blacks was to clean houses and offices, cart wool and other chores. We were all underemployed. You always used to see blacks pushing carts through the city and lining up in Quintino Bocatuva Street, with their buckets and brushes, waiting for the call to clean a house here, scrub a floor there. The blacks had to hustle, as they say today. They had to create various sources of work, as porters, gardeners, domestic servants, sweeping the sidewalks, washing cars … All those jobs that didn’t exist before, the blacks created shoe shine boys, newspaper vendors, day laborers, all those jobs they created for their subsistence, because the fazendeiros (farm owner) wouldn’t hire black.44 It was under these circumstances that racially based political organizations could exist and thrive. Racially based social movements are not unusual when a particular ethnic group is marginalized in a blatant manner. For example, a similar black movement developed in Cuba called the Partido Independiente de Color (1908). This organization formed because of the virulent racism that Afro-­Cubans faced. The white elite in Cuba also marginalized the Afro-­Cuban population by excluding them from the work force; also, the Cuban white elite encouraged European immigration––in hopes that the Afro-­Cuban population would disappear.45 Racially based movements were usually not as militant as they eventually became in São Paulo, but they did exist all over Brazil. For example, in Bahia, they were formed in Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, and Pernambuco. They tended to exist more in the guise of social clubs. Many social clubs appeared after slavery as a response to not being able to join more white-­dominated social clubs. For example, in São Paulo, O Clube de 13 de Maio dos Homens Pretos (The May 13th Club of Black Men)46 in 1902, O Centro Literário dos Homens de Cor (The Literary Center of Men of Color) in 1903, A Sociedade Propugnadora 13 de Maio (The Propulsion Society of May 13th) in 1906, O Centro Cultural Henrique Dias (The Cultural Center of Henrique Dias) in 1908, A Sociedade União Cívica dos Homens de Cor (The Civic Union Society of Men of Color) in 1915, and Associação Protetorados Brasileiros Pretos (Black Protectors Association) in 1917. In Rio de Janeiro, there were O Centro da Federação dos Homens de Cor (The Federation Center of Men of Color) in Pelotas/ Rio de Grande Sur, A Sociedade Progresso da Raça Africana (1891) in Lages/ Santa Catrina, and O Centro Cívico Cruz e Souza (1918). However, in São

Black Brazilian protest   43 Paulo, the oldest social club was Clube 28 de Setembro (Club of September 28th), which commenced in 1897. Yet, the largest of these groups were O Grupo Dramático e Recreativo Kosmos (The Kosmos Dramatic and Recreational Group) and O Centro Cívico Palmares (The Palmares Civic Center), which were founded in 1908 and 1926, respectively. In São Paulo, although there was not necessarily de jure racism, there was blatant racism. European immigrants were given preference in employment and had better economic prospects than people of African ancestry. Afro-­Paulistas reacted against racism in the First Republic by forming social clubs.47 Excluded from mainstream society, they met to engage in normal social activities, such as dances, picnics, and other leisure pursuits. These clubs provided Afro-­Brazilians a place to find friends, spouses, and lovers, and they also helped members weather financial difficulty and sometimes offered educational services.48 Many of these clubs published monthly newsletters, which, in the beginning, focused more on local gossip than politics. However, they did provide Afro-­Brazilians a forum that was uniquely their own. Gradually, several Afro-­Brazilian newspapers began to articulate the problems that plagued people of color in Brazil, and by the 1920s, three black newspapers had emerged: Getulino (1923–1926), Clarim d’Alvorada (1924–1932), and Progesso (1928–1931).49 These newspapers reflected the rise of a new black social and political consciousness. In many ways, this new consciousness was formed within a coalition of former slaves and Afro-­Brazilians whose parents, or grandparents, were freedmen during slavery. The abolition of slavery engendered a new generation of Afro-­Brazilian interracial unity.50 During slavery, a Creole freedman probably would not have associated with or personally related to an African slave unless he/she was exceptional. Gama, Rebouças, and Patrocinío had cultural and class differences with the very slaves they sought to liberate. However, by the time the First Republic was born, a new generation of Afro-­Brazilians had emerged; they were all Creole and free. During slavery, people of color faced different types of stereotypes; a pardo (a person of African and European ancestry) was often viewed as a freedman of color, while a negro was considered a slave.51 During the nineteenth century, slaves were more likely identified as “negros”––this is not to say there were not many pardo slaves; in fact, in many provinces, pardo slaves outnumbered negro slaves, and the majority of freedmen during slavery were pardos––though again, there was a sizable population of negro freedmen.52 Nevertheless, these powerful stereotypes helped buttress racial pigmentocracy. With the end of slavery, these color differences became practically meaningless in São Paulo and in the south of Brazil. Afro-­Paulistas faced the same discrimination whether they were pardo or negro as long as they were of visible African ancestry. This was particularly true if the Afro-­Brazilian was not well-­connected with a white patron.53 Therefore, it is no surprise that working- and middle-­class Afro-­Paulistas in the movement would abandon the division between pardo and negro and promote the common cause of social mobility.54 A perfect example of this unity was the relationship of Jayme de Aguiar, a negro, and Jose Correia Leite, a

44   Black Brazilian protest pardo, who collaborated in publishing the newspaper O Clarim da Alvorada. Aguiar was educated and raised in an economically secure family, while his co-­ publisher grew up in poverty.55 Being a mulatto meant nothing without proper social standing. Both Aguiar, the socio-­economically advantaged negro, and Leite, the poor pardo, faced racism from the larger community and realized they would have to unite in order to improve their position in society.56 It was in this context that black mobilization took place. Several politically oriented groups began to appear. The first of note was the Centro Civico Palmares, which first met on the night of October 29, 1926. This was a cultural organization that sought to raise the consciousness of the Afro-­Brazilian community through plays and educational programs. However, this organization was also an advocacy group that fought discrimination, and it addressed issues such as discriminatory hiring practices in the police force; however, they would not achieve success in this area.57

The National Black Front The black organization that gained the most influence, and was most effective at advocating black concerns, was the National Black Front (FNB). This organization was founded by Arlindo Veiga dos Santos (1931), a devout Catholic and follower of the integralist movement.58 The FNB captured the hopes and dreams of the Afro-­Brazilian proletariat who sought social mobility and the black middle class who found themselves locked out of further mobility because of their color.59 The FNB sought full integration of the Afro-­Brazilian into the Brazilian mainstream, and it included political, social, and economic empowerment components. Unlike previous social clubs, this organization attempted to organize all of the black community, and it was national in scope, having affiliates in Bahia, Rio Grande do Sur, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais, though none of the affiliates outside of São Paulo attracted as many members. At its height, it claimed a membership of a few thousand.60 The FNB was responsible for promoting voter registration, and was registered as a political party, which ran several unsuccessful candidates.61 The FNB’s success at first was a reaction to the blatant racism and unresponsiveness of the First Republic to the Afro-­Brazilian community, which created a common solidarity among many Afro-­Brazilians, both pardo and negro. This was particularly true for those ambitious Afro-­Brazilians who realized that solidarity was the only way to effectively fight for social mobility. Early success was accelerated by the fall of the First Republic and the rise of the Getulio Vargas administration (1930). The FNB would find a sympathetic patron in Vargas––at least in his early years. However, he was eventually responsible for the demise of the FNB, when he effectively became a dictator in 1937 and outlawed all political parties. There were two events that especially solidified the FNB’s standing within the Afro-­Brazilian community. The first was its ability to gain access to an ice-­ skating rink in São Paulo that had formerly denied Afro-­Brazilians entrance. The

Black Brazilian protest   45 FNB protested to the police and reportedly threatened violence if the rink did not change its policy. After this incident, the police circulated a memorandum acknowledging that people of color had the right to frequent the skating rink.62 The other event that gave the FNB legitimacy and popularity was its ability to force the state police to end racially discriminatory hiring practices. After the FNB gained an audience with Vargas, the state police department was forced to hire Afro-­Brazilians. The official excuse of the São Paulo police was that there were no qualified Afro-­Brazilians. However, the FNB was ready for this response and had trained several of their men to pass the test.63 The FNB achieved popularity among Afro-­Paulistas of all classes and political backgrounds because they produced results that improved the lives of all black people. However, the initial solidarity was short-­lived because the leadership of the FNB tended to look down on the poor, viewing them as uncultured and uncouth, and the lower socio-­economic class members resented this snobbery. Naturally, this caused a division along class lines.64 Still the FNB provided several programs that were very beneficial to the poorer members of Brazilian society, such as elementary schools, literacy classes, job training programs, and medical and dental programs.65 Although its leadership was from the middle class, several thousand rank and file members were from the working-­class poor.66 Some critics have dismissed the FNB as a middle-­class movement, but this assessment is problematic when one considers that so many of its members were from the working-­class poor.67 It would be a fair assessment to say the members of the FNB were bourgeoisie aspirants and that they had adopted much of the mentality of the dominant bourgeoisie. The FNB did not offer a class critique of society; in fact, Veiga, the leader of the FNB, was a corporatist and very conservative. But, it is unfair to say that the FNB was not endorsed by the black community on the grounds that only a minority of the actual Afro-­Brazilian community was involved. It is not clear if the poor black masses had positive or negative attitudes toward the FNB. The vast majority of the Afro-­Brazilian community, while extremely busy trying to survive economically, certainly had concerns about their situation and were aware of racism. Moreover, what black organization has ever had the majority of the community as members in their organization? In Cuba, the Partido Independiente de Color also had many critics in the black community. For example, Emilio Cespedes, who led another Afro-­Cuban organization, rejected a black political party fearing that it would alienate the white Cuban community and offend the US. He advocated a more cultural Afro-­Cuban organization. Another group of Afro-­Cubans suggested that Afro-­Cubans should focus on training and educating the Afro-­Cuban masses, as well as on developing business opportunities.68 In the US, the debate over how African-­Amer­icans should fight white supremacy was fought between the integrationist National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the separatist Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and later, black communists such as ­Benjamin Davis, who had links to the Communist Party, became involved.69 In other words, oppressed groups will react to their oppression in a variety of ways. 

46   Black Brazilian protest Andrews argues that the FNB was never able to gain ideological control over the black community because contending groups, such as the Club Negro de Cultura Social and the Negra Socialista, divided the black community.70 However, there is no evidence that either of these organizations was particularly popular with the black community. The rather ugly truth is that proto-­fascism was very popular among certain segments of the Afro-­Brazilian masses in the early twentieth century until World War II. Hitler, Mussolini, Peron, and, later, Vargas all enjoyed enormous popularity with essentially fascist programs. The FNB was politically reactionary, but given the historical moment, it makes sense that the black community had enormous sympathy for the FNB, particularly when the Afro-­Paulistas were so blatantly marginalized and generally pushed aside by European immigrants, who often also discriminated against them. Afro-­Brazilians were denied social mobility not because they lacked skills but because of racism. The FNB, with its nationalistic message of racial unity, must have appealed to blacks. The FNB’s major obstacle was not internal class division but rather the political atmosphere in Brazil. After the fall of the First Republic (1930), the Vargas administration allowed Afro-­Brazilians a political space that had not existed before. The FNB quickly took advantage of this space and became the major advocacy group for Afro-­Brazilians, but in 1937 Vargas would become dictator of Brazil and form the corporatist Estado Novo, built with the same political strategies used by Mussolini in Italy. These included the outlawing of political parties, including the FNB.71  The FNB was successful in organizing the southeastern region of Brazil but had little impact beyond this region. This was mainly because the rest of Brazil did not experience the same type of immigration that São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sur, and Rio de Janeiro experienced and, as a result, did not face the same type of blatant racism that Afro-­Brazilians faced in the southeastern regions.72 In regions such as the northeast of Brazil where Afro-­Brazilians were and still are the majority of the population (Bahia, Pernambuco, and Maranhão), racial unity was not as strong as in São Paulo. Northeastern Afro-­Brazilians did not have the racial consciousness that emerged in São Paulo, and organized themselves in the same way as they had before slavery. Unlike in the south, there were very few demographic or economic changes after slavery; subsequently, few white immigrants were competing for jobs. The FNB would be the inspiration for future black movements in Brazil because it combated racism directly, not only through civil rights advocacy. It attempted to create institutions that would help the underclass by promoting literacy and providing job training programs. The FNB also attempted to participate in electoral politics, though it failed because very few Afro-­Brazilians were eligible to vote, and blacks in rural areas were under the control of powerful landowners.73 In the final analysis, the FNB’s major obstacle was the antidemocratic stance ultimately taken by Getulio Vargas with the formation of the Estado Novo in 1937. Yet, during the period of 1930 to 1937, before Vargas had formed the Estado Novo, he was open to a more democratic political process, and it was during this period that the FNB thrived.74 With the rise of Vargas, many of the

Black Brazilian protest   47 Afro-­Brazilian concerns were addressed. Vargas prohibited the blatant racism that existed in São Paulo, including denial of Afro-­Brazilians’ access to public spaces and to governmental employment such as in the police force. The Afro-­ Paulistas were now able to participate in the formal economy of São Paulo, albeit at the lowest levels. Other regions of Brazil such as the northeast did not experience the same type of economic and demographic changes that São Paulo faced after slavery. The Afro-­Brazilians of the northeast did not organize like their southeastern counterparts because the black community of the northeast was much more diverse in occupation and class. Also, people of color did not have to contend with the competition of immigrants and, as a result, did not face the same blatant racism. However, the northeastern Afro-­Brazilians fought in the realms of culture and union organization.

A transnational perspective During the age of the First Republic, the black press in the US had written widely about Brazil. They were intrigued with the ways in which Brazil seemed to lack a color bar. Since the late nineteenth century, there has been a long history of Brazil being viewed as a racial paradise. Discussions of this have been widely documented.75 What remains fascinating is the circulation of Afro-­ diasporic aspiration for an anti-­racist society, and at that particular moment, it was Brazil that was seen as the country where there was a racial democracy. Writers, intellectuals, and activists were intrigued by Brazil for two reasons. It provided a model for what the US could become, and it also provided an opportunity for blacks to migrate, either to do business or settle permanently.76 In 1914, W. E. B. Du Bois had written about Brazil in response to Theodore Roosevelt, who had traveled to Brazil and written about it in the magazine Outlook. Du Bois said, in response to Roosevelt, “The facts are: 1. Brazil is absorbing the Negro Race. 2. There is no color bar to advancement. 3. There is no social bar to advancement.”77 Du Bois then went on to chastise Roosevelt for essentially pretending that the US also allowed blacks to achieve success. Roosevelt had made a trip to Brazil and was quite fascinated by “race relations” in that era. He stated in the Outlook article in 1914: [Brazil is] … in treating each man of whatever color absolutely on his worth as a man, allowing him full opportunity to achieve the success warranted by his ability and giving integrity, and giving him the full measure of respect to which that success entitles him.78 Du Bois dismissed this statement outright as absurd, saying:  This is not so, and Mr. Roosevelt knows it not so. The best men in the United States believe that their ‘civilization’ can only be maintained by compelling all persons of Negro descent to occupy an inferior place. The exceptions to this belief are negligible.79

48   Black Brazilian protest It is important to note that Roosevelt was a classical northern racist from New York. He believed that people of African ancestry and non-­Europeans were unmanly and biologically inferior.80 However, in his article, it appeared that there were things about Brazil that he found admirable. Moreover, it was not above Roosevelt to be a supporter of individual blacks, as was the case concerning the invitation to the White House that he extended to Booker T. Washington, the founder and leader of Tuskegee University. This invitation caused enormous protest from whites, in particular, and some controversy even among the black community, because, in the case of the white community, they believed a black person had no business going to the White House and Roosevelt was essentially disrupting white supremacy.81 Therefore, Du Bois was correct that there was no way one could argue the US at all resembled Brazil until the 1960s, when it had passed Jim Crow laws and the racial ghettos had emerged.82 Yet, if Du Bois had dug deeper and not relied on the word of Jean Baptiste da Lacerda, a member of the white elite he met in Paris, he would have understood that it was not true that Brazil was absorbing the negro race and that there was no color bar or bars to advancement. Interracial marriage, although it did happen among the lower classes and the bohemian class, in particular, was almost impossible to find in “respectable” middle-­class and upper-­class families. Also, there was social and racial exclusion not just in São Paulo but in many spaces of the middle class and elites. Because of people such as Du Bois and Roosevelt, people of African ancestry were deeply interested in a place where there was supposedly no color bar. For Du Bois, it was leverage to show how far behind the US was in comparison to Brazil. Robert Abbott, the millionaire African-­Amer­ican newspaper owner of the Chicago Defender, was deeply interested in Brazil, so much so that he traveled there in 1921. Abbot was intrigued by Brazil because it represented a place where people of African ancestry would be able to do business and live in peace away from the intolerable racism of the US. Abbott, probably more than any person, was responsible for circulating the idea that there was no color bar and no discrimination in Brazil. Interestingly, during his three-­month sojourn in Brazil, he too would face racism as he was often denied rooms in luxury hotels and would have to go elsewhere to lodge. Also, he saw that there were few people of color in the middle or upper classes, and he realized that a poor African-­Amer­ican with no money or skills would not survive in Brazil.83 Also interesting was the reaction of Afro-­Brazilians to Abbott. Their reception of him was mixed. Many found him to be arrogant, and others had no interest in forming a solidarity with him. There were many responses in the black press to Abbott. Years later, some in the black press would be particularly disturbed to hear that he was attempting to buy land and create businesses that would bring black Amer­icans to Brazil. In November of 1926, an article appeared in Clarim d’Alvorada, some five years after Abbott’s visit. Gervasio Moraes, the author of the article, saw black Amer­icans as people who would not assimilate in Brazil, because they were not like Brazilians and wanted to pursue segregation, and would bring a kind of ethnic chauvinism to Brazil.84

Black Brazilian protest   49 In 1936, Adam Clayton Powell (1908–1972), who in 1945 would become the first US African-­Amer­ican congressman from the Harlem district in New York City, wrote an insightful and provocative article embracing solidarity with people of African ancestry in Brazil. The article was in The New York Amsterdam News, which was New York City’s preeminent black weekly. Powell wrote a weekly article in the paper for many years. In one particular issue, he wrote an article entitled “Fascism on Way North on the Throne in Brazil Negroes Already Victims: A Call to Arms!”85 This article is interesting because Powell understood there was a large presence of people of African heritage in Brazil and understood racism to be a problem in Brazil. Powell was an internationalist and later as a US congressmen would be an instrumental player in writing and passing civil rights legislation and a variety of laws that addressed decolonization in Africa and Asia and human rights for the poor, in general, around the world.86 Powell, during the Cold War, used the geo-­politics as an opportunity to improve the conditions of blacks in the diaspora and to promote an anti-­racist agenda at home.87 In fact, before Powell became a congressman, he was an activist responsible for helping to desegregate all the major stores in Harlem that refused to hire blacks, although blacks shopped in these same stores. Also, he helped to desegregate the telephone company in New York City. Before he was a congressman, he had been elected to the City Council in 1941. Powell, like Abbott, bought into the idea that the problem of Brazilian racism was because of the Amer­icans. He said:  Now the Brazilian people were never paid too much, but there never were any dual standards for blacks and whites. A score of years ago, Dr. P. M. H. Savory worked in Brazil. At that time, there was no concept of Negro and White. Race prejudice was unknown.88 He argued that racism in Brazil was a product of Amer­ican capitalism. Powell said, “Today, under the pruning of Amer­ican capitalists, Negroes are paid less than other groups.”89 Indeed, a kind of racial capitalism at large did emerge victorious in the early twentieth century throughout the western hemisphere. Many internationalists who realized Africa and Asia had been colonized looked to Brazil for a place where racism did not exist.90 Therefore, Powell believed that the racism of Brazil was the fault of the US. There were individual cases of Amer­ican multinationals and Amer­ican individuals who participated in racism abroad, and there were powerful white Amer­ican individuals who complained to Brazilians about race mixing such as in hotels.91 A common reason given for why black Amer­icans were not allowed in five-­star hotels in Brazil was because white Amer­ican guests would not feel comfortable. Powell, as a person of African ancestry, was interested in ending racism, and he was willing to use international pressure to do so. He argued in the article that black solidarity was essential: Again—the only salvation for the oppressed darker races is a unity of thought and action, plus a federated world front of all minorities. We can

50   Black Brazilian protest help our fellow blacks in Brazil, and they can help us. How can we? Is not Brazil too far away? In reply—what do you think has kept the Scottsboro boys alive or granted Herndon a hearing by the Supreme Court? The answer is simple—the united protests of liberty-­loving people the world over. Neither geographical barriers nor time and space can prevent the welded world mass opinion from shaking the strongest citadels of reaction and Fascism.92 As an early internationalist, Powell understood the rise of fascism long before the Cold War during an era when it was ascending in Italy and Germany. However, Powell was no Garvey follower. The Garvey movement had corporatist tendencies and, as Paul Gilroy argued, some fascist tendencies.93 However, Powell had a double consciousness, as W. E. B. Du Bois described it. Powell’s fight against racism was an international struggle not based in racial superiority but based in human rights.94 Nevertheless, Powell was absolutely correct in his analysis of Brazilian racism. But, a close reading of the article provides an interesting contradiction. He discusses, in passing, the writings of Viana. One can only assume Powell was talking about Francisco José de Oliveira Viana when he said, “One of the prolific writers of Brazil and an outstanding Fascist is Viana. He is the author of many books ‘proving’ the inferiority of the Negro.”95 Viana’s premise was that “the Negro cannot be civilized.” Oliveira Viana was a mulatto with the same light-­skinned complexion as Powell. He did write many books and did believe in superior and inferior races. He thought people of African ancestry were part of an inferior race. Viana’s work was considered outstanding because he was one of the more learned scholars of his era, but his sentiments were not particularly unusual. Another leading Brazilian intellectual of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century was Raimundo Nina Rodrigues, who argued that blacks were inferior, as well, and who also was a light-­skinned mulatto. In fact, because of Powell’s background and fair skin, it was more than likely Powell would not have faced the same kind of direct racism that he faced in the US and would have safely become part of the light-­skinned mulatto elite in Brazil.96 In the US, Powell had briefly passed for white in his first semester at Colgate, a small college of roughly a thousand male students, and he was one of four students of color at the time he attended. After attempting to join a fraternity, Powell’s racial identity was exposed. However, this did not undermine his academic career; it turned out well for him because he would go on to graduate and come away with enormous pride in his African ancestry. Moreover, he rejected the idea of passing for white and the idea that there was something wrong with being of African ancestry.97 Therefore, when Powell said, “According to their standards, 40 per cent of the population is Negroid. According to the Amer­ican white man, about 80 per cent is Negroid. In Brazil one drop of white blood makes you a white man,” he was engaging in a kind of reductionism because, on the one hand, not every Brazilian that had one drop of white ancestry rejected his or her African ancestry, and many Brazilians believed that whiteness was not about ancestry but about appearance, so many were proud of

Black Brazilian protest   51 being of African ancestry. On the other hand, there were many cases of people who were of Powell’s complexion who were able to reach the highest heights, and those people also experienced racism and discrimination for their color.98 In other words, people who were visibly of black African ancestry were stigmatized in Brazil, even those who reached the heights of power, and these blacks chose strategies to survive under those circumstances. As Gerald Horne has argued in his biography of Dennis Lawrence, whom he billed as the most prominent fascist of the US, Lawrence was a person who was passing for white.99 He argues that one of the ways in which people like Lawrence pass for white is to embrace conservative positions and distance themselves from other black people and anything perceived as black. Perhaps, this is a reason why people such as Francisco Oliveira Viana, and even Raimundo Nina Rodrigues, were some of the more virulent attackers of people of African ancestry, because, in fact, they both were mulattos.100

Conclusions The strategies of people of African ancestry before World War II, with the exception of Marcus Garvey and a few others, were essentially based on intrigue and were read with great interest to understand how people of African ancestry were living in the rest of the world. However, this did not always translate into solidarity as Adam Clayton Powell had hoped. Nevertheless, people of African ancestry were very much aware of each other at that point. Moreover, for Brazilians of African ancestry, the US did not provide any model. In the pre-­World War II era, Brazil was viewed as a model of racial progress; however, as we have seen, Brazil was not a racial paradise at all.

Notes    1 A variety of historical and sociological studies have confirmed this; see George Reid Andrews, Afro-­Latin America, 1800–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Howard Winant, The World Is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy since World War II (New York: Basic Books, 2001); and Edward Eric Telles, Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014).    2 Ethiopia defeated Italy in the Battle of Adwa but later would be briefly conquered by Italy under Mussolini. Also, Liberia, though nominally independent, was essentially a colony of the US and would become dominated by the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company.    3 For discussions on colonialism in Africa, see David Levering Lewis, The Race to Fashoda: European Colonialism and African Resistance in the Scramble for Africa (London: Bloomsbury, 1988).    4 For explicit discussions of how people of African ancestry faced racism in Brazil and particularly in public spaces, see Kim Butler, Afro-­Brazilians in Post-­Abolition San Paulo and Salvador (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998).    5 The idea of African solidarity becomes powerful as a concept after World War II, when people of the African diaspora became fascinated with the decolonization ­movements of Africa and Asia. See Paulina L. Alberto, Terms of Inclusion: Black

52   Black Brazilian protest Intellectuals in Twentieth-­Century Brazil (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).    6 See Warren Dean, The Industrialization of São Paulo, 1880–1945 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1969), for an in-­depth analysis of economic growth in São Paulo.    7 The Brazilian sociologist Florestan Fernandes has argued in his book The Negro in Brazil that Afro-­Brazilians were not prepared for freedom because they lacked the proper education or skills. However, this was not true, according to Andrews, who points out the European immigrants tended to be just as uneducated and unskilled as the ex-­slave population. See George Reid Andrews, “Black and White Workers: São Paulo, Brazil, 1888–1928,” Hispanic Amer­ican Historical Review 68, no. 3 (1988): 491–523. Also, to understand the white supremacist attitudes of the elites, see Jeffrey Needell, “History, Race, and the State in the Thought of Oliveira Viana,” Hispanic Amer­ican Historical Review 75, no. 1 (1995): 1–30, and “Identity, Race, Gender, and Modernity in the Origins of Gilberto Freyre’s Oeuvre,” Amer­ican Historical Review 100, no. 1 (1995): 1–75; and Robert M. Levine, “Elite Perceptions of the Povo,” in Modern Brazil: Elites and Masses in Historical Perspective, eds. Michael L. Conniff and Frank D. McCann (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 209–224.    8 George Reid Andrews, “Black and White Workers: São Paulo, Brazil, 1888–1928,” Hispanic Amer­ican Historical Review 68, no. 3 (1988): 491–524. Also see Dale Torston Graden, From Slavery to Freedom in Brazil: Bahia, 1835–1900 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006).    9 Andrews, “Black and White Workers”; and Graden, From Slavery to Freedom.   10 For an analysis of discrimination in the labor market in Rio de Janeiro, see Sam Adamo, “Race and Povo in Modern Brazil,” in Modern Brazil: Elites and Masses in Historical Perspectives, eds. Michael Conniff and Frank McCann (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 193–194.   11 Leandro Colon, “Primero negro do STF, Pedro Lessa sofria ataques de Epitácio Pessoa,” O Folha de São Paulo, June 1, 2014. This article gives examples of how it was a stigma for Pedro Lessa to be of African ancestry. See discussion on Pedro Lessa and Hermenegildo Rodrigues de Barros in História do Supremo Tribunal Federal, ed. Lêda Boechat Rodrigues (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1991).   12 Pollianna Milan, “Crimes mal solucionados,” Gazeta do Povo, July 1, 2011. Also see Amazonas, August 1, 1896 and Amazonas, July 25, 1896. These articles show the anxiety that Brazilian society had over people of African ancestry and, in this case, the African heritage of Eduardo Ribeiro.   13 For information on Nilo Peçanha, see the Museu Afro Brasil website: www.museu­ afrobrasil.org.br/pesquisa/hist%C3%B3ria-e-­mem%C3%B3ria/historia-­ememoria/ 2014/07/17/nilo-­pe%C3%A7anha.   14 “MuseuAfroBrasil,” accessed January 16, 2019, www.museuafrobrasil.org.br/.   15 See 1872 census: https://biblioteca.ibge.gov.br/biblioteca-­catalogo?id=225477& view=detalhes.   16 When I say white elites, I do not mean to imply that there was a singular white elite. There were internal differences among elites. I would argue that Brazilian elites did organize around the idea that they were white. Their whiteness was a signifier of exclusion. Also, whiteness was a signifier for privilege, and blackness was in their eyes shorthand for people who were not entitled to these privileges. I will discuss this more in Chapters 4 and 5.   17 “Population of Brazil: Statement from the Embassy on the Foreign and Negro Element,” The New York Times, January 31, 1921.   18 See Eurpide Funes, “O Negro em Ceará,” in Uma Nova Historia do Ceará (Fortaleza: Edicoes Democrito Rocha, 2007), 103–132.

Black Brazilian protest   53   19 See Carlos A. Hasenbalg, “Race and Socio-­economic Inequalities,” in Race, Class, and Power in Brazil, ed. Pierre-­Michel Fontaine (Los Angeles: University of Los Angeles, 1985); and, more recently, Edward Telles, Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).   20 After the First Republic, there were new ways to continue the ideal of whitening. Gilberto Freyre would be probably the most influential. He would actually become one of the first scholars to celebrate notions of African culture. However, Freyre was not interested in ending racial inequality, and he had very limited conceptions of blackness.   21 E. Bradford Burns, “Manuel Querino’s Interpretation of the African Contribution to Brazil,” The Journal of Negro History 59, no. 1 (1974): 79.   22 Burns, “Manuel Querino’s Interpretation.”   23 Maria das Graças de Andrade Leal, “Operários Baianos na luta pela cidadania política na Primeira República,” Paper presented at the 27th National Symposium of History, 2013, 1.   24 Leal, “Operários Baianos,” 164–166.   25 Leal, “Operários Baianos.”   26 Leal, “Operários Baianos.”   27 Aldrin A. S. Castellucci, “Trabalhadores, máquina política e eleições na Primeira República” (Ph.D. thesis, Federal University of Bahia, 2008), 94–142.   28 Castellucci, “Trabalhadores.”   29 Katia Mattoso, To Be a Slave, 1550–1888, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986).    30 Mattoso, To Be a Slave.   31 Mattoso, To Be a Slave, 2.   32 Jorge Calmon, Manuel Querino: o jornalista e o político (Salvador: CEAO, 1980).   33 Calmon, Manuel Querino.   34 Leal, “Operários Baianos.” See the newspaper Jornal de Notícias, June 9 and 10, 1890. Also, one of Querino’s main allies, Edístio Martins, was involved with the socialist newspaper O Socialista. The party was aware of tactics used by workers in the European labor movements.   35 Antônio Vianna, “Manuel Querino,” Revista do Instituto Geográfico e Histórico da Bahia 54 (1928): 308; Calmon, Manuel Querino.   36 Leal, “Operários Baianos,” 12.   37 Manuel Querino, A Raça Africana e Seus Costumes na Bahia (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização, 1938), 22.   38 Sabrina Gledhill, Travessias no Atlântico Negro: Reflexões sobre Booker T. Washington e Manuel R. Querino (Editora Funmilayo Publishing, 2018).   39 Manuel Querino, Costumes Africanos no Brasil (Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Massangana, 1988), 23.   40 Louis R. Harlan, “Booker T. Washington and the White Man’s Burden,” The Amer­ ican Historical Review 71, no. 2 (1966). Also see Louis R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee 1901–1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 277.   41 See Zelbert Moore, “Luíz Gama: Abolition and Republicanism in São Paulo, Brazil, 1870–1888” (unpublished diss., Temple University, 1978), 182–200.   42 Kim D. Butler, Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-­Brazilians in Post-­Abolition São Paulo and Salvador (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998). See Scott Ickes, African-­Brazilian Culture and Regional Identity in Bahia, Brazil (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015).   43 See Dean, The Industrialization of São Paulo, for an in-­depth analysis of economic growth in São Paulo.

54   Black Brazilian protest   44 Andrews, “Black and White Workers,” 505.   45 Aline Helg, “Race in Argentina and Cuba, 1880–1930,” in The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870–1940, ed. Richard Graham (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), 53–57.   46 May 13th, the day slavery was officially ended in Brazil.   47 Kim Butler, “Up from Slavery: Afro-­Brazilian Activism in São Paulo, 1888–1938,” The Americas 49, no. 2 (1992): 179–206.   48 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 186.   49 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 190.   50 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 181.   51 H. S. Klein, “The Colored Freedmen in Brazilian Slave Society,” Journal of Social History 3, no. 1 (1969): 39.   52 Klein, “The Colored Freedmen in Brazil,” 39.   53 As stated above (see section entitled “The Afro-­Brazilian conservative” in Chapter 1), there were many cases of blacks, usually light-­skinned, securing important positions in the First Republic; however, they usually did not identify with their color. For example, Nilo Peçanha (who became president during the First Republic) and Nina Raimundo Rodrigues and Jose Oliveira Viana, who were both academics who wrote very disparaging pseudo-­academic texts about Afro-­Brazilians, were all of mixed blood. There were many other examples. See Nelson do Valle Silva, “Updating the Cost of Not Being White in Brazil,” in Race, Class, and Power in Brazil, ed. Pierre Michel Fontaine (Los Angeles: Center for Afro-­Amer­ican Studies, 1985), which shows that this gap between black and pardo does not exist in modern Brazil, though the perception has remained among many people.   54 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 179–181.   55 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 190–191.   56 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 190–191.   57 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 192–197.   58 The integralist movement was a proto-­fascist movement that gave rise to the Integralist Party, formed by Pinion Salgado. This movement appealed to Afro-­Brazilian activists because it was against immigration and seemed more sympathetic to Afro-­ Brazilian concerns. For more information on the integralist movement, see E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 295; and Thomas Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, 1930–1964: An Experiment in Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 21–22.   59 See Kim Butler, “Identity and Self-­Determination in the Post-­Abolition African Diaspora: São Paulo and Salvador, Brazil, 1888–1938” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1994), 157–219.   60 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 200.   61 During this time, the vote was limited to the literate, who represented a small minority of the Brazilian community. See George Reid Andrews, “Black Political Protest in São Paulo, 1888–1988,” Journal of Latin Amer­ican Studies 24, no. 1 (1992): 158.   62 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 199.   63 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 199–200.   64 Andrews, “Black Political Protest,” 160.   65 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 198.   66 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 200.   67 Andrews seems to make the argument in his article “Black Political Protest” and his book Blacks and Whites that the FNB was a middle-­class movement. I disagree because, though the leadership consisted of white-­collar workers or professionals, what separated the leadership from the rank and file was probably educational attainment, which is different from color or class. The FNB, unlike any other organization, made a concerted effort to improve the lot of the Afro-­Brazilian masses.

Black Brazilian protest   55   68 Andrews, “Black Political Protest.”   69 David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981). Lewis provides keen insights on Garvey’s UNIA and Du Bois, who co-­founded the NAACP. Interestingly, members of the Centro Civico Palmares were distant admirers of Marcus Garvey, though they did not agree with his Back-­toAfrica movement. See also Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 194–195.   70 Andrews, “Black Political Protest,” 160.   71 Butler, “Up from Slavery,” 203.   72 Donald Pierson, Negroes in Brazil (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947), 343, describes how the FNB was unsuccessful at organizing the black community.   73 Andrews, “Black Political Protest,” 158.   74 Several movements thrived during this period (1931–1937), for example, women’s groups.   75 See David J. Hellwig, “Racial Paradise or Run-­around? Afro-­North Amer­ican Views of Race Relations in Brazil,” Amer­ican Studies 31, no. 2 (1990): 44. See also Micol Seigel, Uneven Encounters: Making Race and Nation in Brazil and the United States (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009).   76 Hellwig, “Racial Paradise or Run-­around? Afro-­North Amer­ican Views of Race Relations in Brazil,” 44.   77 David J. Hellwig, African-­Amer­ican Reflections on Brazil’s Racial Paradise (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1992), 32.   78 Theodore Roosevelt, “Brazil and the Negro” (February 21, 1914), 409. www.theodore rooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-­Library/Record/ImageViewer?libID=o279 297&imageNo=1.   79 Hellwig, African-­Amer­ican Reflections, 33.   80 Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).   81 Deborah Davis, Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation (New York: Atria Books, 2012).   82 For discussion on the transition from slavery to new forms of oppression of African-­ Amer­icans, see Loic Wacquant, “From Slavery to Mass Incarceration: Rethinking the ‘Race Question’ in the US,” New Left Review 13 (2002): 41.    83 Roi Ottley, The Lonely Warrior: The Life and Times of Robert S. Abbott (Chicago: H. Regnery Co., 1955).   84 Gervasio Moraes, “A Inquisição Moderna,” Clarim d’Alvorada, November 14, 1926.   85 Adam Clayton Powell, “Fascism on Way North on the Throne in Brazil Negroes Already Victims: A Call to Arms!” The New York Amsterdam News, November 28, 1936, 14.   86 For a compelling critical biography of the successes and failures of Adam Clayton Powell, see Charles V. Hamilton, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.: The Political Biography of an Amer­ican Dilemma (New York: Antheneum, 1991).   87 See Penny Von Eschen, Race against Empire: Black Amer­icans and Anticolonialism, 1937–1957 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014). She discusses the limits of his internationalism as a US congressman; nevertheless, he did attend the Bandung Conference in 1955 and was intent on organizing a progressive agenda.   88 Powell, “Fascism,” 14.   89 Powell, “Fascism,” 14.   90 Powell, “Fascism,” 14.   91 Powell, “Fascism,” 14.   92 Powell, “Fascism,” 14.   93 Gilroy, Paul, “Black Fascism,” Transition 81/82 (2000): 70–91, www.jstor.org/ stable/3137450.   94 It is important to note that Powell, unlike others, worked through positions of institutional power as a congressmen.

56   Black Brazilian protest   95 Needell, “History, Race, and the State in the Thought of Oliveira Viana.”    96 Powell attempted to pass for white when he was an undergraduate at Colgate College; however, when it was discovered that he had African ancestry, this provoked a kind of identity crisis that in the long term made him very proud of his African ancestry.    See Lawrence Rushing, “The Racial Identity of Adam Clayton Powell Jr.: A Case Study in Racial Ambivalence and Redefinition,” The Free Library (January 1, 2010), www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Racial+Identity+of+Adam+Clayton+Powell+Jr.%3a +A+Case+Study+in…-a0221086340.   97 Rushing, “The Racial Identity.”   98 An example of how race and racism work even with people of color at the highest levels is given by Daniel G. Reginald, Machado de Assis: Multiracial Identity and the Brazilian Novelist (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012). Also, for contemporary examples of the complicated ways in which racial identity functions in Brazil, see Alexander Edmonds, Pretty Modern Beauty, Sex, and Plastic Surgery in Brazil (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011); and Elizabeth Hordge-­Freeman, The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, and Socialization in Black Brazilian Families (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015).   99 Gerald Horne, The Color of Fascism: Lawrence Dennis, Racial Passing, and the Rise of Right-­Wing Extremism in the United States (New York: New York University Press, 2009). 100 Skidmore discusses that Raimundo Nina Rodrigues was a light-­skinned mulatto in Thomas E. Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought, with a Preface to the 1993 edition and Bibliography (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 57. For discussions on Oliveira Francisco Viana, see Gilberto Freyre, Sobrados e mucambos: decadencia do patriarchado rural no Brasil (Sāo Paulo: Nacional, 1936), 372; José Honório Rodrigues, Da História do Brasil (Sao Paulo: Companhia Ed. Nacional, 1988); and Nelson Werneck Sodré, A Ideologia do Colonialismo; Seus Reflexos no Pensamento Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro: Editôra Civilização Brasileira, 1965), 1. Also, for one of the best discussions of Oliveira Viana in English, see Needell, “History, Race, and the State in the Thought of Oliveira Viana.”

3 High art, black art One black theatre’s response to racism

Introduction This chapter focuses on Abdias do Nascimento, one of Brazil’s most influential black activists and intellectuals, and concentrates on his development of black theatre in Brazil through the Teatro Experimental Negro (TEN). In the context of the theatre, he also edited a short-­lived newspaper from 1948 to 1950 called Quilombo: Vida, Problemas, E Aspiraçōes do Negro (Quilombo: Life, Problems, and Aspirations of the Black Man). This newspaper served as TEN’s intellectual mouthpiece, and years later his article entitled “Quilombismo” would be considered highly important. His theory of Quilombismo will be discussed in a later chapter. I will examine the theatre and his newspaper Quilombo in this chapter to focus on what became an exchange of black internationalism and its significance in combating racism in an Afro-­diasporic manner. Abdias do Nascimento’s activism and intellectual work spanned most of the twentieth century, and he was actively and intensely interested in combating racism in Brazil, during an era of supposed “racial democracy.” In many ways, Nascimento represents a praxis for dealing with “racism without racists.” His work as an activist and intellectual is helpful in understanding how to give relevant historical insights and how activists combated racism in an age where the Brazilian model of “racial democracy” had been widely adopted in some form or fashion in the Atlantic world. This discourse has been very successful in the guise of color-­blind racism in the US. Therefore, the life and work of Nascimento offer insights into how people of African ancestry have fought racism in the context of color-­blind racism.1

Outlaw culture goes mainstream: background of the Vargas nationalization project Prior to World War II, Vargas (who ruled from 1930 to 1945), in many ways, legitimized Afro-­Brazilian culture by allowing an African-­influenced carnival to take place and allowing blacks to practice Candomblé without police prosecution. Vargas also helped TEN by allowing them to perform in the municipal theatre. All of these reforms helped to give the illusion of Brazil as a racial

58   High art, black art democracy. In 1951, Brazil passed the Afonso Arinos Law forbidding racial discrimination after Katherine Dunham, an African-­Amer­ican dancer and anthropologist, was denied access to a hotel in São Paulo. Many in the Brazilian elite were embarrassed by what had happened to Katherine Dunham. As a result, the Brazilian government proactively passed a law to abolish discrimination. However, it was embarrassment more than outrage that provoked this response. This kind of discrimination had been occurring all along in Brazil and would continue after the law was passed, since it was never enforced.2 Nevertheless, to the international community, the law gave the appearance that Brazil’s government did not tolerate discrimination. The leader of promoting Brazil as a racial democracy was Gilberto Freyre, a member of the Pemambucan elite, who studied at Baylor University in Texas and Columbia University in New York, and who was the architect and intellectual force behind spreading this notion to his fellow countrymen and finally to the world. He would accomplish this with the publication of his book Casa Grande e Senzala (1933), which would later be published as The Masters and the Slaves (l946) in the US. In this book, he applied the theories of his professor of anthropology at Columbia, Franz Boas. Boas was one of the first social scientists to put forward the idea that culture, not genetics, determined the major differences among men.3 Freyre applied this idea to the Brazilian experience by arguing that the vast racial miscegenation that occurred in Brazil was an advantage, not a detriment, to Brazilian society. Afro-­Brazilians had contributed enormously to the development of Brazilian society, and he acknowledged that the African contribution was an integral part of the formation of Brazilian identity. He went on to argue that “the testimony of anthropologists reveals for us traits in the Negro showing a mental capacity that is in no wise inferior to that of other races.”4 Yet, Freyre’s argument served the interests of the white community more than it did the black community. Now, the Brazilian elite did not have to be ashamed that they were a country of blacks and mixed bloods. Thus, white Brazilians assumed no responsibility toward the Afro-­Brazilian population, secure in their belief that they were not racist. When a person of color such as Nascimento talked about racism, he was often himself accused of racism and of creating a problem that did not exist.5 Hence, political activism on behalf of blacks was silenced. The blatant racism that existed during the First Republic had become more sophisticated during the Second Republic (1945–1964). The Afro-­Brazilian no longer had the same type of political voice that existed during the days of the FNB. However, this is not to say that all Afro-­Brazilians bought into the myth. TEN was a perfect example of an organization that never bought into the racial democracy thesis and fought proactively against racism. Many Afro-­Brazilians were quite aware of the hypocrisy of Brazil’s racial democracy. This was particularly the case with the small black middle class, who had to deal with racism in their attempt to ascend to middle-­class status.6 Still, there was more racial fluidity in social interaction and even interracial

High art, black art   59 interaction among non-­elites. The poor were probably less conscious of the effects of racism because they did not compete with whites for white-­collar jobs or other jobs that carried status and economic security.7 By the Second Republic, the Afro-­Brazilian working class was well represented in the labor market, albeit holding the least desirable jobs in the labor force.8 Blacks still faced racial discrimination, and those who faced discrimination inevitably chose to deal with it in a different manner. Afro-­Brazilians continued to maintain their own social societies, and there existed limited black protest movements such as Uniao Homens Negro, which was probably the most popular. Although the rhetoric of racial democracy and the acknowledgment of Afro-­ Brazilian forms of government were being recognized and there were some improvements in the work force and examples of blacks reaching the middle class, blacks after World War II remained impoverished, and the vast majority of Afro-­ Brazilians still found most professions closed to them.9 Therefore, although there were some achievements, the ideas of whitening and Euro-­assimilation were still widely popular as means for people of African ancestry to achieve success.10 The Vargas dictatorship marked the end of public political organizations of all forms. With groups such as the FNB being forced to shut their doors (1937), there was an urgent need for black advocacy. Afro-­Brazilians had won small victories early on with the FNB and through Afro-­Brazilians’ insistence on continuing their traditions, including the right to engage in cultural practices such as Candomblé and to have an African-­influenced carnival. However, the Afro-­ Brazilian community continued to face widespread racism. Many elite Brazilians believed that the large Afro-­descendant population were a problem in creating a modern state in Brazil. The idea of a Europe in the tropics was still in vogue among the elite.11 The idea of whitening the population was still the most popular idea among the Brazilian elite.12 A new generation of critical intellectuals and black activists in Brazil would emerge during the time when Brazilian politics was controlled by the authoritarian politician Vargas, who had suspended democracy with the Estado Novo. The Vargas era, in many ways, was the beginning of a very subtle color-­blind racism in Brazil. Therefore, a new sophisticated black activism would emerge to challenge racism.

The mainstreaming of outlaw black culture and the rise of TEN The outlaw African culture that existed during slavery became mainstream during the Vargas years. For instance, in Salvador, it was illegal for Afro-­ Brazilians to practice Candomblé, and members would be arrested for doing so.13 Even Brazil’s famous African-­influenced carnivals, such as the ones in Rio and Salvador, were heavily repressed by the state until 1930.14 In his novel Tent of Miracles, Jorge Amado perfectly sums up the reaction of the elite to the perceived threat of African culture. The character Professor Nilo Argolo reacts to the Manuel Querino-­inspired characters’ validation of African culture by saying:

60   High art, black art How dare you call our Latin culture Mulatto? That is a subversive monstrous statement … You confuse the horrid sounds of sambas and batuques drumming with music; abominable fetishistic figures carved without the least respect for the laws of esthetics are a form of culture, I tremble for this country if we ever assimilate such barbarism, if we do not react in time against this avalanche of horrors. Listen to me: We must cleanse our country’s life and culture of this mind of Africa which is be-­howling us. Even if it becomes necessary to resort to violence to do so.15 Afro-­Brazilians fought for the right to practice their religion and to follow their African-­influenced culture, and, as previously mentioned, this once outlaw culture became an accepted part of the mainstream Brazilian culture. In other words, the Afro-­Brazilians who resisted the project of a Europeanized Brazil won a partial victory in the realm of culture. The Vargas dictatorship marked the end of all overt political organizations, but it was nevertheless a period of cultural renaissance in many ways for black culture in that Afro-­Brazilians had already won small cultural victories. Despite the dictatorship, Afro-­Brazilians insisted on continuing their traditions. Capoeira had been nationalized during the Vargas era and had become an official sport. Also, samba had become the national dance and music of Brazil. All of these forms of culture emerged prior to the Estado Novo and had been repressed by the police and were considered outlaw culture. The police regularly invaded samba parties, Candomblé, and capoeira, and the police always repressed the African-­influenced carnivals throughout Brazil or heavily regulated these activities. However, Afro-­ Brazilians through years of struggle and negotiation were finally able to win these partial victories. It was within this context that black theatre emerged. However, this did not mean that racism was ending; on the contrary, the project of whitening continued in Brazil, and the Afro-­Brazilian community continued to face widespread racism. The black population was seen as a problem that had to be dealt with and the idea of whitening the population remained the most popular idea among the Brazilian elite.16

Abdias do Nascimento and the black theatre Nascimento, who was born in the state of São Paulo in the interior city of Franca, after spending a stint in the military as a youth, would join the integralist movement and play a minor role in the FNB as a youth.17 It was in Rio de Janeiro around 1940 that Nascimento became involved with the arts. He struck up a relationship with five other artists, three Argentines and two fellow Brazilians.18 They formed the Holy Orchid Brotherhood, a traveling poetry troupe that toured all over Latin America. Involvement in several artistic endeavors in Lima, La Paz, and Buenos Aires marked the beginning of Nascimento’s serious engagement with the theatre. In Lima, Nascimento witnessed a performance of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones and became disturbed that a white actor in blackface portrayed the principal protagonist, Brutus. Nascimento noted:

High art, black art   61 I was indignant to see a white blackface actor, Hugo D. Evieri, playing the title role of Brutus Jones. There is a substantial African population in Peru, so obviously this was one more form of Anti-­African discrimination just as in Brazil, where Africans entered in theaters only in real life roles of janitors. This was when the idea occurred to me of creating a black theater in Brazil. I committed myself to embark upon the project when I returned home.19 Nascimento learned the craft of theatre and drama in Buenos Aires where he informally participated with a theatre group named Teatro del Pueblo that was directed by Hugo Barleta; and Nascimento also learned his craft from other theatres such as La Mascara.20 After two years of travel, Nascimento returned to Brazil in 1942, where he found that he was a fugitive from the law and was promptly sent to jail for a fight that he had been involved in while in the military in 1936.21 In prison, Nascimento started a theatre group, directing and producing two plays. Upon his release from jail, he realized that his calling was the arts and that theatre could be more than mere entertainment or art for art’s sake. He envisioned theatre that could have a political impact and improve the Afro-­Brazilian situation, and this vision led to the birth of TEN, which was formed in 1944.22 TEN, true to its name, was an alternative theatre that sought to have a psychological and sociological impact on the Afro-­Brazilian community through art. The four major goals of TEN were: (1) To restore African culture to its rightful place, equal to other cultures in Brazil; (2) to eradicate from the Brazilian stage white actors blackened to perform major black roles; (3) to terminate the custom of using black actors merely in grotesque and demeaning roles; and (4) to unmask as inauthentic all pseudo-­scientific literature‚ which in reality served only to distract from attention the real emergent problems in a white racist society.23 Financial support was hard to come by, but the theatre did have its champions, such as writer Annabel Machado and the writer/politician Carlos Lacerda. They provided valuable contacts for the theatre, and Lacerda published articles about TEN and its shows in O Jornal, a paper that he edited.24 A central problem for the theatre was finding Afro-­Brazilian actors due to the lack of opportunities given to blacks. As a result, TEN went into the black community to find and train many Afro-­Brazilians, some of whom became Brazil’s most noted black actors. Nascimento and some of the other founding members, such as Aguinaldo Camargo, began to teach acting and literacy to over 600 Afro­Brazilians.25 The theatre also received support from Professor Jose Lisboa and Maria Yeda Leite of the University of Brazil, as well as from US Cultural Attaché William Rex Crawford, poet José Francisco Coehlo, and writer Raymundo Souza Dantas; they were all enlisted by TEN to lecture on various academic subjects in the black community.26 Even President Vargas lent his support

62   High art, black art to TEN by giving the group his stamp of approval by allowing it to perform in the municipal theatre of Rio de Janeiro.27 Many of the theatre’s members and students were people who lived in Rio’s favelas (shanty towns) and held the lowest positions in society such as maids and domestics, while others were unemployed, students, or civil servants.28 Interestingly, TEN’s first play was O’Neill’s Emperor Jones. The TEN leadership felt Brazilian plays often portrayed Afro-­Brazilians as one-­dimensional characters, negating the humanity of the Afro-­Brazilian community. The O’Neill play presented TEN with a unique opportunity to introduce Brazilian audiences to a different perspective on the black experience.29 O’Neill was so impressed with TEN’s effort that he waived his royalty rights and wrote a letter of encouragement to them from his deathbed. TEN’s first play was a critical success and was reviewed widely by the mainstream press. Of course, the reviews were not all favorable. Frequent criticism that Nascimento and his theatre faced was that they were racist and were trying to stir up racial tension in Brazil by promoting racial democracy. For example, O Globo Rio de Janeiro‚ a leading newspaper, in a review of the theatre in 1950, said: Nevertheless, for some time now there have been currents concerned with giving blacks a situation apart. With this they seek to divide, with no laudable results: Black theater, black newspapers, and black clubs. But this is pure and simple imitation, with pernicious effects. Now they are even talking about black candidates in the October election.30 TEN also performed two other O’Neill plays, All God’s Chillun Got Wings and The Dreamy Kid, as well as several other plays, including Langston Hughes’s Mulatto and Albert Camus’ Caligula.31 They developed their own repertoire of plays by black and white Brazilian playwrights, including Nascimento’s Sortilege (Black Mystery) and Lucio Cardoso’s Filho Prodigio (The Prodigal Son). Works of the black diaspora were integral to TEN’s experiment. According to Nascimento, TEN had poetry readings of “Always the Same” by Langston Hughes, “Menina de Fovea” by Aldir Custodio of Brazil, and “Negro Hermano Negro” by Regino Pedroso of Cuba.32 TEN was very aware of other black cultural movements throughout the world, such as the Negritude movement in France, the black literary movement in Cuba, and the Harlem Renaissance movement of the US. All of these black literary movements coincided with TEN’s agenda of presenting a more complex and nuanced understanding of black life that embraced the unique culture of people of African heritage, but which was universal in its ideal of humanity. The works of Nascimento indeed presented a much more nuanced perspective of the African diaspora. The official organ of TEN named Quilombo documented many of the intellectual ideas of the theatre and the major issues concerning the Afro-­Brazilian community and their connection to the African diaspora at large. The newspaper had articles about theatre, Afro-­Brazilians, Afro-­Brazilian

High art, black art   63 culture, the African diaspora, and racism in Brazil. The paper adopted a strategy of pointing out the hypocrisy of saying that Brazil was a racial democracy. One example of this hypocrisy is described in the article entitled “We Want to Study” written by an actor in the theatre, Haroldo Costa, who was a student at the time. In the article, he argues that it was not only a lack of money that prevented blacks from studying but also racism. He points out several schools that did not allow people of color admittance. Also, he shows clear cases of racism, such as blacks being denied entry into the military school because, even though they had passed the test, they failed the medical exam despite having no medical issues.33 Costa relates that there was no problem except that they were black.  The newspaper would regularly discuss in very concrete detail how racism was functioning in Brazil beyond education. Other articles documented job discrimination based on color in Brazilian theatre and how racism was affecting almost every aspect of society.34 Also fascinating was the enormous attention paid to what was happening in the African diaspora. For example, Efrain Tomas Bó wrote an article entitled “Afro-­Amer­ican Poetry” which showed the direct connection to the work of poets throughout the diaspora, including Alexander Pushkin and Alexandre Dumas. The article linked a collective identity of blackness throughout the Western world. Articles such as this helped to demonstrate the idea that there was an intellectual praxis in Brazil that was concerned with black identities in the context of literature and history. Also, the paper interviewed the black North Amer­ican novelist and journalist, George Schuyler, who, in turn, wrote about Afro-­Brazilians based in part on his relationship with Nascimento.35 In their discussions, they had exchanged their ideas on the ways in which racism was functioning in their respective countries. Quilombo would devote a very long essay describing the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the US, written by Hardin Hughes for his Negro Year Book, which had originally been published in the US and was then republished in Quilombo, translated by João Conceicão.36 Moreover, there was a fascination with and interest in the African-­Amer­ican experience and their racial struggle. There was constant reference to African-­Amer­ican celebrities such as Joe Louis, the North Amer­ican boxing champion who had recently defeated the German Max Schmeling to claim the World Heavyweight Championship in the US, which was a metaphor for a knockout blow to white supremacy. Also, the entertainers Marian Anderson, Katherine Dunham, and Josephine Baker were all represented on the pages of Quilombo. When Marian Anderson and Katherine Dunham visited Brazil, representatives of TEN greeted them both. Quilombo followed other black North Amer­icans such as Nobel Prize winner Ralph Bunche and would print one of his articles about the importance of human solidarity. TEN was not only interested in blacks in the US; it was also interested in blacks throughout the diaspora. There were articles on Haile Selassie, who would be the inspiration for the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica.37 Other examples of Afro-­diasporic solidarity were what the white French scholar Roger Bastide called the Movimento Negro France (French Black Movement), better known as Negritude in France.38 Quilombo promoted Présence

64   High art, black art Africaine, which was the principal organ of the Negritude movement in France. The Negritude movement was a literary and intellectual movement created by Africans from the French colonies and blacks from the Caribbean. This journal was highly influential in the Pan-­African movement and the decolonization movement of Africa. Intellectuals such as Roger Bastide had come to Brazil to study Afro-­religions and were genuinely interested in TEN and the African diaspora at large. Bastide wrote an article for TEN about the Negritude movement in France. This kind of black newspaper was not unique. There were several other black newspapers that had been produced in Brazil, particularly in São Paulo (O Menelik and Alvorada), and even places like Porto Alegre had black newspapers. In the nineteenth century, there had been papers that discussed black community concerns. Quilombo was not as radical in its editorial outlook as the work of Nascimento would be in later years. However, it would be a mistake to view TEN as a group merely attempting to assimilate into a Brazilian national project. Nascimento’s organization and his constituents were combating racism by asking Brazil to embrace its blackness in all its forms. For Nascimento, his blackness was part of the black Atlantic world. Quilombo lasted for only three years, but it allows us to see the thinking of TEN. It makes it possible to see how the Afro-­diasporic identity was formed. TEN was more than a theatre; it was an organization whose main purpose was to combat racism. It engaged in other anti-­racist activity by hosting conferences to strategize how to combat anti-­black sentiment, and it ultimately became a space to organize politically. Even after the end of the theatre, Nascimento would continue to engage in politics in a variety of ways. He ran for several offices until he went into exile because of the military regime that came to power in 1964. Nascimento also was active in several mainstream political parties and attempted to organize within these parties. In many ways, the social networks that Nascimento had developed since the 1940s would serve him well, and when he returned to Brazil, he became an instrumental member of the Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT), which became an important political party after the dictatorship ended in 1985. During the 1980s and 1990s, Nascimento would hold several political positions, including being elected a congressman and becoming an alternate senator for Rio de Janeiro. He was instrumental in helping to organize several anti-­racist laws that strengthened anti-­racist legislation, in which he had been indirectly involved as early as 1950, such as the Afonso Arino Act (the first anti-­racist law in Brazil). When the new constitution of 1988 was written, he was one of the architects of the new laws. Ultimately, Nascimento’s black theatre was unsuccessful in making a serious positive impact on the black community, but the work of the theatre was important in that it exposed racism in Brazil and was in solidarity with people of African ancestry in the diaspora. Moreover, Nascimento had cultivated contacts with people from all over the African diaspora.

High art, black art   65

Notes   1 For complete or partial biographies of Nascimento, see Sandra Almada, Abdias Nascimento (São Paulo: Selo Negro, 2009); and Femi Ojo-­Ade, Home and Exile: Abdias Nascimento, African Brazilian Thinker and Pan-­African Visionary (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2014). For a more complete archive of his works go to: http:// ipeafro.org.br/.   2 Nascimento points out that he and other activists had for years (since 1946) been trying to put forward an anti-­discrimination law. It only came about after Dunham’s international scandal. See Abdias do Nascimento and Elisa Larkin Nascimento, Africans in Brazil: A Pan-­African Perspective (Lawrenceville, NJ: Africa World Press, 1992), 33–36.   3 See Jeffrey Needell’s biographical article about Freyre: “Identity, Race, Gender, and Modernity in the Origins of Gilberto Freyre’s Oeuvre,” Amer­ican Historical Review 100, no. 1 (1995): 66–68.   4 Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1966), 295.   5 Nascimento formed an activist organization that dealt with political and social issues concerning the Afro-­Brazilian community, and ran for several political offices, never winning until he returned from exile in the 1980s.   6 See George Reid Andrews, Blacks and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888–1988 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 155–180.   7 Conrad Kottak notes the fair amount of interracial marriage that existed among Arembepe’s (Bahia) working class. Also, Fontaine points out (using census information of 1950) that the favela was fairly integrated. Therefore, the majority of poor or working­class blacks had very little reason to contextualize racism or, more importantly, to develop a “black identity” in the absence of racial polarization, particularly when there were pressing matters, such as proper nutrition, proper sewerage, and so on. The Afro-­Brazilian working class was well represented in the labor market, albeit holding the least desirable jobs in the labor force. In other words, the new black movements did not happen in a vacuum. See Conrad Kottak, Assault on Paradise: Social Change in a Brazilian Village (New York: McGraw-­Hill, 1992), 67–70; and Pierre-­Michel Fontaine, “Blacks and the Search for Power,” in Race, Class, and Power in Brazil, ed. Pierre-­Michel Fontaine (Los Angeles: Center for Afro-­Amer­ican Studies, 1985), 59–62.   8 Andrews, Blacks and Whites, 124–160.   9 Andrews, Blacks and Whites, 124–160. 10 However, there was resistance and strategies to integrate, as I discussed in the last chapter. See Kim Butler, “Up from Slavery: Afro-­Brazilian Activism in São Paulo, 1888–1938,” The Americas 49, no. 2 (1992): 179–206.  11 Jeffrey Needell details this mentality in A Tropical Belle Epoque: Elite Culture and Society in Turn-­of-the-­Century Rio de Janeiro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 12 Thomas E. Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought, with a Preface to the 1993 edition and Bibliography (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 173–218. As Skidmore points out, by the 1930s, the Brazilian elite still believed in the whitening theory but had rejected some of its most blatant racist aspects. 13 Kim Butler, “Identity and Self-­Determination in the Post-­Abolition African Diaspora: São Paulo and Salvador, Brazil, 1888–1938” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1994), 279–352; Rachel E. Harding, A Refuge in Thunder: Candomblé and Alternative Spaces of Blackness (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003). 14 Chris McGowan and Ricardo Pessanha, The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova, and the Popular Music of Brazil (New York: Billboard Books, 1991), 39; Butler, “Identity,” 279–352.

66   High art, black art 15 Manuel Querino is considered by many to be the father of Afro-­Brazilian studies. He was an Afro-­Brazilian, who documented many of the various contributions that the Afro-­Brazilians imparted to Brazil. Jorge Amado wrote a novel loosely based on his life: Jorge Amado, Tent of Miracles (New York: Knopf, 1971), 168. 16 Skidmore, Black into White, 173–218. 17 Nascimento, Africans in Brazil, 17. 18 Nascimento, Africans in Brazil, 21. 19 Nascimento, Africans in Brazil, 21–22. 20 Nascimento, Africans in Brazil, 23. 21 Nascimento, Africans in Brazil, 23. 22 Nascimento, Africans in Brazil, 25. 23 Doris J. Turner, “Black Theater in a Racial Democracy: The Case of the Black Theater,” CLA Journal 30, no. 1 (September, 1986). 24 Nascimento, Africans in Brazil, 25. 25 Aguinaldo Camargo was a lawyer and police chief of Rio. See [No author], “The Negro Theatre in Brazil,” Americas 1 (June, 1949): 22. 26 “The Negro Theater,” 23. 27 Nascimento, Africans in Brazil, 26–27. 28 Doris J. Turner, “Black Theater in a “Racial Democracy”: The Case of the Brazilian Black Experimental Theater,” CLA Journal 30, no. 1 (1986), 30–45, at 34. 29 Turner, “Brazilian Experimental Theatre,” 37. 30 Elisa Larkin Nascimento, The Sorcery of Color Identity: Race, and Gender in Brazil (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008), 169. 31 Turner, “Brazilian Experimental Theatre,” 34. 32 Turner, “Brazilian Experimental Theatre,” 37. 33 Haroldo Costa, “Queremos Estudar,” Quilombo 1 (1948): 4. 34 See the article by Rachel Querioz, “Linha de cor,” Quilombo 1 (1948): 2. 35 George Schulyer, “Dois mundos preto e branco, dentro de um so pais,” Quilombo 1 (1948): 1–2. 36 W. Hardin Hughes, “Ku Klux Klan: Organisçäo terrorista dos Estados Unidos,” Quilombo 3 (1948): 9. 37 Joáo Conceição, “Sob os céus etiopicos,” Quilombo 4 (1949): 4. 38 Roger Bastide, “O movimento negros Francês,” Quilombo 9 (1950): 3.

4 Strategies against racism in the age of the military dictatorship

The era of silence and the making of new black politics in the era of Brazilian dictatorship: the case of Adalberto Camargo and Brazil-­Africa As black activists such as Abdias do Nascimento were forced to go abroad because of the 1964 political coup, by 1968, once again as in 1937, political activity began to be heavily censored in the press. No longer were left-­of-center movements able to practice politics. Nevertheless, there was limited advancement in the electoral sphere for black leadership during this period. Activists such as Nascimento and Leila Gonzalez had emerged during the last phase of the military dictatorship. However, there were committed black politicians who had attempted to work through the limited framework of the dictatorship. The most successful at doing this was Adalberto Camargo. Camargo was born in Araraquara, São Paulo in 1923. He began to work as a child to support his family. At the age of 16, he moved to the capital of São Paulo, where he became a successful entrepreneur and the owner of a large car dealership. He became a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), a party opposed to the military regime that had come to power through a coup d’état in 1964. He was the first self-­identified black man to be elected as a federal congressman for São Paulo, in November of 1966. In his first year in office, he presented a project instituting Afro-­Brazilian Community Day. He was a member of the Committee on Transport, Communications, and Public Works and was an alternate member of the House Finance Committee. In 1968, he founded and was elected president of the Afro-­Brazilian Chamber of Commerce. From this organization, he founded and directed other projects, such as Mecanova S/A, Afro-­ America Import and Export, and Yellow Taxi, one of the pioneers in Brazil which established the use of Volkswagen as a rental car, bringing him great prestige within the country’s top business circles.1 Elected executive member of the Council of the Foreign Chamber of Commerce, he directed the Trade Federation and also the Trade Center of the State of São Paulo. Re-­elected in November 1970, he was an effective member of the Finance Committee and assumed the vice chair of the Committee on Transport, Communications,

68   Strategies against racism and Public Works of the Chamber. He was also a member of the special committee for the integration of the Portuguese-­speaking peoples and the special commission for the preparation of a project for Portuguese-­Brazilian socio-­economic integration. In addition, he was the founder and commissar-­general of the Brazilian trade mission to Africa that in 1973 covered nine countries of that continent. In the same year, he created Editora Afro-­Brasileira Ltd., which was responsible for the publication of the Chamber’s magazine, with a circulation directed toward entrepreneurs, governments, and Brazilian and African entities. As a member of the MDB’s regional and national directorates, he was re-­ elected in November 1974, and the following year, he became a member of the Chamber’s Foreign Relations Committee. In 1977, he was appointed director of the Federation of Commerce of the State of São Paulo. Appointed to the Chamber in November 1978, he continued to serve on the Foreign Relations Committee in the legislature that began in February of the following year. As a member of the so-­called “moderate” faction of the MDB, with the extinction of bipartisanship (November 1979), he transferred to the Social Democratic Party (PDS), a successor organization of the Aliança Renovadora Nacional (ARENA) which came under the leadership of then governor Paulo Salim Maluf.2 In 1980, he promoted the First Brazil-­Africa Trade Symposium, which brought together entrepreneurs from thirty-­three African countries. In the elections of November 1982, he ran for a full-­time position in the Chamber of Deputies, but only obtained a substitute position. He left the Chamber in January of the following year, at the end of the legislature. Also, in 1983, he founded the Brazil-­Nigeria Chamber of Commerce and Industry, based in São Paulo, and he participated in the installation of the Nigeria-­Brazil Chamber of Commerce and Industry, based in Lagos. In 1985, he became president of the São Paulo section of the Brazilian People’s Party (PPB), in which he ran for the Senate, though he was not elected. In 1989, he was founder and regional and national president of the Democratic Party (PD), which was later incorporated into the Progressive Republican Party (PRP) in 1992. In the new group, Camargo was national vice president, and from September 1995 to September 1997, he served as regional president of the party in São Paulo. What is clear in the biography is that Camargo was committed to the black community in Brazil and was particularly interested in the African diaspora. He had made trips as a young man to the US before the civil rights movement, and had received students and young people of African ancestry from the diaspora and Africa. By the time of Camargo’s death, he was not only a leader in Brazil as a congressman, but he was one of Brazil’s most prominent black leaders. He also helped elect black women leaders throughout São Paulo. He did this by organizing and developing an electoral army of voters and developing political organizations. He is quoted as saying: When I started attending the MDB, I realized that all the black candidates so far were only candidates in a paternalistic context. A black person could

Strategies against racism   69 approach any of the political leadership, request and get an audience. Of course, they did this to demonstrate that there was no discrimination and because if they did not provide the necessary support for the individual to be elected, he still had a commitment and debt of gratitude to his political godfather. If selected, there was nothing that person could offer the community because they had to render obedience to the person that sponsored them. This led me to the conclusion that I had to enter public life without having a sponsor. I am not the tailor of any party chain. I have never been a classist, ideological, a student, or trade unionist. I was an ordinary man, a man from the interior who came to São Paulo to try life. I was elected thanks to my behavior throughout my life. If I could sell a taxi and have a car leasing company, I can be a politician because marketing is open. The black man longs for something, and I’m going to make my campaign alone in the middle black. I want the answer to the question: Is there an expectation in the black community to self-­affirm in the country? I will not solve any problem, and I will start a process and the others that continue. Society is changeable, and for the Negro, the mutation is in the sense of improving its position within the community. I was elected within my political project. I chose Theodosina Ribeiro, Paulo Rui, and created the Afro-­Brazilian Chamber of Commerce to develop a work of connecting to our origins. I thus created the most important historical phenomenon in this state, the Negro in the three houses of popular representation, representation at all levels. Only this fact is sufficient for the community to begin to realize that society is representative, and for the first time, we were represented. Whether we represent it right or wrong, it does not matter, because the Negro never had a tradition of public life, nor the practice of political practice, much less partisan. Negro never left in Brazil. Never influenced any party. It only started to matter after my intervention. The problem of the Negro is the cause and not the party; the Negro never belonged to any party.3 I have quoted the words of Carmargo extensively to demonstrate that, during the military dictatorship, there were models of development that existed that were not necessarily based on socialist traditions but on what we might tentatively call a racially conscious sense of black development. Camargo, through his organizations, supported a variety of black politicians in São Paulo, and had success with some of the candidates and success in helping some blacks develop themselves as entrepreneurs. Clearly, however, these organizations did not change society at large, and Camargo realized this, but he was intent on presenting a model of development in the black community. He understood that, by building his own organization, he could have more control, and this would serve as a way of empowering other Afro-­Brazilians. Finally, what is critical in the work of Camargo is his institution-­building perspective that focused beyond Brazil and looked toward the possibility of using international commerce as a way of creating jobs and opportunities. By the 1980s, however, a small cadre of Afro-­Brazilians had made inroads into politics.

70   Strategies against racism

New forms of outlaw cultural Afro-­diasporic approaches: reggae and black soul in Brazil Afro-­diasporic music in Brazil Two forms of music had a tremendous impact on Brazilian culture, black soul and Brazilian reggae. Both forms were more than consumerism and a way of promoting a leisurely lifestyle rooted in capitalism. These musical forms represented a way of promoting a new kind of identity politics rooted in the solidarity of people facing many of the same issues that those of African ancestry were facing throughout the African diaspora and Africa itself, particularly concerning decolonization in Africa. These forms of music embodied a new politics that was transnational and spoke directly to black people and, moreover, demonstrated agency in that these forms pointed out ways of helping to democratize and promote new cultural expressions. Both forms were rooted in enormous controversies and were particularly resented by a large section of the political and intellectual elites, from both the “left-­wing” and “right-­wing” perspectives. The major complaint was that these forms of music were not authentic and had nothing to do with the Brazilian experience. Moreover, as the scholar Stephen Bocksay demonstrates in one of his articles, many black samba artists rejected, to a certain degree, foreign influences as a foreign imposition, particularly in Rio de Janeiro.4 Nevertheless, over time, the music forms of black soul and reggae have had an enormous impact on Brazilian culture, and they have been rearticulated in completely original ways. The idea that these music forms were cheap appropriations or, even worse, somehow cultural forms of imperialism, in retrospect can be seen as untrue. The popular culture of Brazil was not in any way more or less different than other cultural artifacts, such as food, fashion, modern technology (Apple computer, iPad, and iPod), and so on. Indeed, it is true there has been a traditionally disjointed balance of power where the US, Europe, and Japan have disproportionally controlled trade and dominated the world economy through their multinational corporations. Still, this history has to look at who benefits from these relationships and how these relationships work. People of African ancestry were indeed disproportionately absent from controlling multinational corporations, even where they were producing the product, as in the case of cultural workers. Though it is true much of the most successful music from black soul and reggae was eventually promoted and owned by multinationals, the organic black soul movement that occurred in the 1970s came from the bottom up, and that was also the case with reggae.5 In many ways black soul music reflected the ideals of outlaw culture from the colonial period.6 Urban Afro-­Brazilian youth began to define their blackness in new ways. They began to embrace many “subversive” aspects of black culture from the US and began to create a new black identity. Mass communication had a huge impact on Brazilian popular culture in general. The counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s in the US and Europe was

Strategies against racism   71 being disseminated through television, cinema, and “subversive” rock ‘n’ roll music. The military government viewed images and sounds of world youth culture as dangerous to Brazil. Ironically, the elites who had viewed the national samba and the African-­influenced carnival as “subversive” were vigorously defending them now.7 They viewed rock ‘n’ roll as “imperialistic” and anti-­ Brazilian. However, musicians such as Tom Ze, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Jorge Ben embraced Amer­ican and Western European culture and defined it on their own terms. For instance, Gilberto Gil took the Berimbau, an instrument used to accompany the Angolan-­derived capoeira (dance and martial art), and used it as the basis for one of his most popular songs of the sixties, “Domingo No Parque.”8 Gil mixed the traditional Berimbau with the same orchestrations used by the Beatles and their producer George Martin. Caetano Veloso played North Amer­ican rock ‘n’ roll, but was often booed by his audience, who did not appreciate the sounds of US rock ‘n’ roll.9 However, this constant experimentation with new music ushered in a new postmodern sound that was termed “Tropicália.”10 These artists were anticipating the impact that mass communication would have on Brazil and the world, but instead of rejecting these influences, they embraced them and redefined them on their own terms. Hence, rock ‘n’ roll and youth culture were “subversive,” but more than subversive, they were transgressive because they symbolized individualism and democratic values that were not imposed top down by intellectual elites. Organic intellectuals, musicians, artists, poets, and, finally, local activists spread them. Therefore, it was no wonder that musicians, such as Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, were constantly harassed by the police during the dictatorship and were finally exiled to England.11  But the artists engaged in Tropicália, although thought to be subversive by the national government, were not the only ones who were harassed. Left and right thinkers alike attacked African diaspora music. The left attacked it because of what they saw as a bad influence on the youth, and the right saw it as a form of anti-­Brazilianism. The artists of the Tropicália movement were not passive colonists seduced by the imperialist US. On the contrary, artists such as Gil and Veloso were expanding their art, and subsequently redefining their national identity. In fact, artists like Veloso were fiercely nationalist. This is critical to the understanding of the black soul movement. The youth movement directly challenged meanings of national identity. Thus, this movement, in some ways, was potentially more dangerous than the Tropicália movement.12 It challenged the myth of Brazil as a racial democracy, whereas Tropicália was redefining national identity but was not necessarily contradicting the symbols and ideals of the elite. The black soul movement directly challenged the status quo. Black youth in Rio began to adopt the symbols and values of black youth in the US. They began wearing dashikis and styling their hair in Afros. They ­listened to soul music performed by Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, and other famous Afro-­Amer­ican artists. They were avid fans of black exploitation films of the 1970s.13

72   Strategies against racism Moreover, as the samba became more controlled by commercial sources, and even Umbanda (a syncretized religion that combined African, Indian animism, and Catholic practices) became more dominated and controlled by whites, black youth developed a new cultural expression that they controlled.14 A new postmodern identity emerged that was not dependent on an elitist national identity, but rather on an Afro-­diasporic identity. One may argue that black soul was a trend that was imposed on the youth by transnational record companies who saw the value of opening markets abroad.15 However, this argument is problematic in several ways. It assumes that transnational corporations are able to control the masses, without the masses being able to reinterpret popular culture for themselves. If this was the case, why did the black youth choose soul music as opposed to punk music or heavy metal, which also had a great appeal among predominantly white urban youth in the US and the UK during the middle to late 1970s? Afro-­Brazilian urban youth had an obvious affinity to the Afro-­diasporic experience because it spoke specifically to their circumstances, and this was music that helped express dignity that served as a way to articulate the experiences of people from working-­class backgrounds and specifically addressed the question of racism through musical expression. Black soul was not simply about soul music or the Afro, although these factors were obviously integral to it. It was a cultural project that was about asserting these new black identities that were not necessarily rooted in political or economic interests. They were rooted in an aesthetic of being “cool.” This was a major form of reaction by black youth in a world where people of African ancestry were mostly portrayed as invisible in their representation on television and in film, or as major protagonists, stereotypical criminals, and people with no intelligence. Black soul represented, to a large extent, what it meant to African­Amer­icans to have a music that made people feel good about themselves and their culture. Black soul and the dances related to it were initially marketed to the middle class by record companies, but they had larger appeal to mainly poor black kids in the suburban areas and peripheries of Rio de Janeiro, and later in all the major cities in Brazil. One of the first areas in Rio where this music became popular was in Canecão, and from there, it spread nationally. At the end of the 1960s, small parties and meetings took place in homes; afterwards, as demand grew, they migrated to sports courts in neighborhoods on the periphery of Rio de Janeiro. The educator Carlos Henrique dos Santos Martins, in his research writing entitled “Black Music as a Cultural Expression of Youth in Different Times and Spaces,” argues that it was these celebrations that gave rise to black dances, “since such meetings were almost a possible response or an alternative to the absence of leisure spaces in which blacks could be without discrimination.”16 For many, the home served as a meeting point to hear the news of black music, as well as a space for negotiation that enhanced the articulation of community living and the sharing of elements that fostered the creation of an identity. At that first moment, there was still no distinction between musical styles, and it was possible to hear and dance samba, suingue, and soul in one place.

Strategies against racism   73 However, the first signs of the arrival of the black power movement in Brazil were already being observed. Identity marks, such as hairstyle and clothes, were not only related to fashion: curly hair became a symbol of blackness that was gradually being incorporated by young people into family spaces as well.  The dances, more and more choreographed, also expressed the process of initiation and enhancement of awareness. In this context, some soul songs of North Amer­icans began to be played on Newton Duarte’s radio program. Alvarenga, known by the nickname of Big Boy, in the late 1960s was a producer and a disc jockey. Ademir Lemos Inácio, who had great influence in the South Zone of the city, invited Big Boy to participate in the “heavy dances,” events that happened in Canecão, a brewery located in the district of Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro. These dances attracted about 5,000 dancers per night, coming from both the South and North Zones of the city. Later, due to problems with Canecão’s location, Inácio decided to transfer these dances from the outskirts to the North Zone. That change led to the spread of the soul style, growth in the size of the audiences of the dances, and the emergence of dozens of sound teams. Some of the albums cited by Viana are Black Power, A Good Mind, Black Cell, Atabaque, Revolution of the Mind (a James Brown album), Cashbox, Hurricane 2000, which still exists today (in another format, more funk-­oriented), and the Soul Grand Prix, all of which were responsible for the political connotations of this music that emerged and then ended very quickly. Many Brazilian artists who were influenced by artists such as James Brown reinterpreted this music in Portuguese and in their own way, as was the case with the singer and actor Toni Tornado. In 1965, Tornado went to the US where he soaked up the music of the era and also became a good friend of Tim Maia, who was also living in the US at the time. Tim Maia apparently lived in the US from 1959 to 1963, but was eventually deported when he was found possessing marijuana. In the US, Maia lived basically as a marginal person in the sense that he had a variety of marginal jobs, which included selling drugs. But, most importantly, it was a period in which he was able to absorb the various forms of black music in the US. He also participated in several bands, mainly in New York City.17  Maia and Tornado both experienced the racism of the US and particularly felt solidarity with people of African ancestry, but, most importantly, they were enamored of the music of the US first hand and joined in solidarity with black people and their struggle. Upon returning to Brazil in 1970, Tornado brought musical and political awareness about blackness. This new aesthetic that Tornado and Maia brought upon returning to Brazil proved very enticing to young black Brazilians. Many cultural figures began to redefine this music in a culturally palatable way for Brazilian consumers. For example, the singer and presenter Wilson Simonal, although he was chosen by his record company to host James Brown at the airport in 1973, was part of that movement. “I never had the pretense of creating a black movement … I was influenced by seeing black Amer­ican artists, elegant … I like harmonic music. It’s biological, I’m an arranger.” His song “Tribute to Martin Luther King” was released in 1967 on his album entitled Show em Simonal:

74   Strategies against racism Yes, I am a black of color my brother of my color What I ask is fight yes Fight more! That fight is at the end … There There There There There There There There There There There There There There! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Every black man that is Another black man will come To fight With blood or not With a song Also fight brother Hear my voice Oh Yes! Fight for us … Too black fight (Fight too dark!) It’s fighting for peace. (It’s fighting for peace!) Too black fight To be equal.18 In fact, this was Simonal’s only music whose subject matter directly referred to blackness. The musician Gerson King (Gerson King Combo), who was influenced by Amer­ican black music, and was part of the Erlon Chaves Band, partnered with Wilson Simonal and was part of the embryonic group that grew into the Black River Band.  There were many other artists and bands that emerged during this period, such as Carlos Dafé, Os Diagonais, Hyldon, Don Salvador and Abolition, Robson Jorge, Black Union, Trio Tenderness, Miguel de Deus, and the Black Soul Brothers. One must also mention the great singer Sebastião Rodrigues Maia, known as Tim Maia. Before venturing into other rhythms, Tim Maia was one of the first to bring soul music to Brazil, and later would be one of Brazil’s most renowned artists. However, Maia’s music was not necessarily political. But it was aesthetically very black. He often wore an Afro, used soul rhythms with big horns, and sang in a uniquely soulful fashion reminiscent of James Brown and Sly Stone. More than any other artist, his music had a huge impact on Brazilian popular music. He recorded with Regina Elis, Caetano Veloso, and Jorge Ben, another artist who is extremely influenced by the black soul of Rio de Janeiro—but maintained a deeper mixture of Brazilian rhythms in his music. Jorge Ben’s lyrics also provided a deeper consciousness of black pride with songs like “Negro é Lindo” (“Black is Beautiful”), songs about Zumbi and Palmares, and songs about black historical figures such as Chica da Silva. Some have argued that Lena Frias was the first journalist to explore and study the phenomenon of black soul in the peripheries or lower income areas of Brazil. She described it as a sociological phenomenon that had a presence in Brazil, revealing and naming the black soul scene on the pages of the press at a national level in 1976.19 One of the biggest critics of Black Soul was Gilberto Freyre, he wrote:

Strategies against racism   75 Perhaps my eyes are deceiving me? Or did I really read that the United States will be arriving in Brazil … Amer­icans of color … Why? … to convince, Brazilians, also of color, that their dances and their “Afro-­Brazilians” songs would have to be of “melancholy” and “revolt.” And not, as it is today … sambas which are almost all happy and fraternal. If what I have read is true, it is more an attempt to introduce into a Brazil that is growing fully, fraternally brown (Moreno)—what appears to cause jealousy in nations that are also bi or tri-­racial—the myth of negritude, not of Senghor’s type of the just valorization of black or African values, but the other: the inspiratory of the lucid Marx the sociologist, but the other; the inspiratory of a militant Marxism with its provocation of hatred … What must be made salient, in these difficult times which the world is living in, with a terrible crisis of leadership … Brazil needs to be ready for work being done against it, not only of Soviet imperialism … but of the United States as well.20 This is interesting because, in this quote, Gilberto Freyre sounds like prior elites who were horrified by samba because they too thought it was not Brazilian music. In many ways these people were fighting within the vanguard of an outlaw tradition. By the 1990s, however, Afros faded away, and the soul artists started to be replaced by indigenous funk artists such as Tim Maia and his disciples of soul, including Ed Motta, his cousin, Sandra da Sa, Claudio Zoli, Luni Skowa e Mafia, and Hanoi.21 The 1990s also saw Afro-­Brazilians embrace rap in Brazilian music, and soul was replaced by funk music. Beyond black soul were other forms of Afro-­diasporic music, the most important of which was Jamaican reggae, which, like black soul, would be readopted and remade for Brazilians’ consumption. This music’s biggest impact was in Salvador, Bahia, and São Luis, Maranhão, and these places became the capitals of Jamaican reggae music. An example of this new reciprocity is the black community of Damásio, a so-­ called “contemporary quilombo” (maroon colony) of descendants of slaves in Maranhão, which organized a group of reggae dancers in order to reinforce the community history of resistance. In other rural black villages, such as Frechal, Santa Rosa, Itamatatíua, etc., reggae is a constant presence at parties, together with other musical rhythms, such as merengue, forró, bolero, tambor-­de-crioula, dança do coco, etc. Even participants of bumba-­meu-boi groups recognize the importance or significance of reggae as a component of Maranhão’s cultural identity, as we see in their song lyrics.22 One could argue that roots reggae was as popular in Salvador and Maranhão as it was in Jamaica. A movement developed among many youth in Brazil that was centered around reggae. They grew dreadlocks, and some followed the tenets of Rastafarianism and were deeply interested in the history of Jamaica and Africa.23 Jamaican artists, such as Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff, became particularly popular among Brazilian youth in general.24 Also, by the 1990s, there arrived several popular reggae groups and acts that received national acclaim, such as Cidade Negra, Skank, and, from Bahia, Edson Gomes.

76   Strategies against racism In the 1990s, it was not uncommon to find reggae clubs all over the northeast of Brazil. In Salvador, Bahia, one could hear roots reggae blasting in clubs in Pelorinho, a historic neighborhood in Salvador that, before the 1990s, was mainly frequented by working-­class Afro-­Brazilians, but by the 1990s had been revitalized. Over time Pelorinho changed and was no longer the same space for reggae as it had been in the 1990s, though reggae remained popular in Bahia, particularly where local bands had a following. But the real capital of reggae in Brazil was São Luis, where there was enormous intellectual production. Reggae music came to São Luis in the 1960s, as part of a variety of other Caribbean forms of music, such as merengue and boleros. Local traders and sailors brought these rhythms with them. Over time, reggae rhythms became very popular in clubs and on radio stations with their own DJs. Eventually, politicians and local activists used the music as a way to mobilize and promote political issues and as a way to promote racial pride. As with black soul, it was highly contested. Most white elites made disparaging remarks about the music and culture, arguing that it was a foreign music, and it had nothing to with music from Brazil. However, as the intellectual Silvia Black points out: Maranhão and Jamaica have many similarities … the roots of Afro-­America are diverse but the rhythms are related. Black people and Afro-­indigenous people identify with these rhythms, even though they may be expressed in different languages—what’s important is the musical message.25 Also, reggae music was important because of its aesthetic. It was a new way of being black and controlling an image rooted in black pride. In sum, the black soul and reggae movements marked the first time that Afro-­ Brazilians of the lower urban classes could develop their identity from an unabashed Afro-­diasporic perspective. In fact, samba and other rhythms were Afro-­diasporic in the sense that they drew inspiration and a history from Africa, but by the early twentieth century they were made into an exclusive component of Brazilian identity. Black soul and reggae contributed to what Du Bois called double consciousness, so there was no need to draw sole inspiration from a Brazilian national identity. Reggae and black soul sought to openly explore a more Pan-­African understanding of blackness, where national identity was not conflicted in constructing African diasporic identities based on an open understanding of blackness.  Finally, it is worth noting that these music forms also drew influence from the African diaspora and were not purely North Amer­ican or purely Jamaican art forms. These art forms were hybrids. In these debates, we seldom recognize how deeply influenced black soul music was by other parts of the diaspora. The 1960s was a decade in the US when decolonization movements in Africa and Asia influenced African-­Amer­icans, Afro-­Brazilians, and people of African ancestry throughout the diaspora. The popular clothing, such as the dashiki, and African hairstyling with braids and the Afro, were African inspirations. The parents of black children in the 1960s saw black Amer­icans naming their children with

Strategies against racism   77 black names. Moreover, the music of the time looked outward for other influences. Many artists went to Africa, and if they could not go to Africa, they began to construct new notions of Africanity. For example some artists drew inspiration from Cuban and Puerto Rican drumming sounds.26 Also, during the disco and funk eras, percussionists used the cuíca and other Brazilian styling. Often Afro-­diasporic community is not understood because the cultural producers’ framework is one presented from a national perspective. An example of this is how the tango in the twentieth century was shown as a national dance; however in recent years scholars are beginning to acknowledge that tango has Afro-­diasporic origins that were recognized by the popular classes in the nineteenth century. However, in the 1970s, black soul in Brazil and soul music from the USA were not ashamed to embrace a transnational identity rather than a strictly national identity.  One of the most important session percussion players was Paulinho da Costa.27 Costa played with over one hundred different artists, mainly soul music. Costa and early band members, such as Jorge Ben, left Brazil and went to the US to play as session musicians. One of the most prominent Brazilians to have success in the US was Sergio Mendes, who used Afro-­Brazilian rhythms and the music of the Afro-­Brazilian Jorge Ben’s song “Mas Que Nada” to achieve success. Sergio Mendes’s music was disseminated in part by black radio programs. His music had a global impact, but it also had a particular impact within the North Amer­ican black community and among the artists of the time, as well as soul music artists of today.28 In 1983, in a New York Times article, the music critic Robert Palmer acknowledged the influence of this black music: Black music, whether it’s pop or jazz, usually signals the onset of a new wave of innovation with radical rhythmic changes. Such changes are already evident in the music of the black pop underground, and now more established performers like George Clinton and Maurice White are bringing them to the surface and proposing some Brazilian inspired changes of their own. But will the innovations announced by these rhythmic shifts be powerful enough to at least begin to correct the pop charts’ racial imbalance? The possibilities are intriguing, to say the least, but the outcome is not yet clear. For the time being, one can only listen, and wait.29 One of the most famous Amer­ican bands in the 1970s was Earth, Wind & Fire, whose lead vocalist acknowledged that his main vocal influence had been Milton Nascimento.30 Palmer’s article also stated: Nascimento’s influence has been evident in Maurice White’s writing and arranging for several years now. Mr. Nascimento, and Brazilian pop in general, combine African-­derived rhythms that tend to be more flowing and buoyant than their North Amer­ican funk counterparts with a melodious pop lyricism based on relatively complex, jazzy harmonies, and Maurice White has done something very similar on Earth, Wind & Fire’s Powerlight album.31

78   Strategies against racism Palmer pointed out the Brazilian influence in the music of George Clinton: The Brazilian influence in George Clinton’s new music is most immediately evident in “Loopzilla,” a 12-minute track on his Computer Games album that has also been released as a single. A Brazilian friction drum chatters throughout the song, while a Brazilian carnival rhythm is ingeniously transformed into James Brown-­ish funk and back into a Brazilian groove again. Many listeners will concentrate on the babble of electronically altered voices and synthesizers rather than on the remarkable rhythmic sleight-­ofhand. On “Loopzilla,” “Atomic Dog,” and several other selections, Mr. Clinton meets the challenge of electronic funk and rapping head-­on with his own deliberately out-­of-kilter variant. However, this influence had come before in more subtle forms before Computer Games. One can notice there is a cuíca, an instrument associated with Brazilian Samba, in the middle of George Clinton’s One Nation Under a Groove‚ a quintessential black-­ Amer­ican anthem which was first recorded in 1978, that has been sampled by numerous black hip-­hop artists. In reality African and Afro-­Latin rhythms had been at the epicenter of black musical styles since origins of jazz in New Orleans and the circulations of rhythms have continued back and forth until now.32 In areas of black expressive culture, musicians of all backgrounds have had no qualms about appropriating styles, instrumentations, and so on. As some political scientists have pointed out, we can do the same thing in understanding of the Afro-­diasporic community that informs political practice. This identity formation has not been “momentary,” but rather keeps reinventing itself whether through reggae, rap, or funk music. Afro-­Brazilian youth have continually identified with the black diaspora and, as a result, have reinvigorated Afro­Brazilian culture with positive affirmations of “blackness.” Unlike TEN of earlier times, black soul had mass appeal and was not hierarchical and elitist. Neither was it dependent on the government or the elites. The military government often seek to undermine the black soul movement in Rio de Janeiro by harassing its participants with the local police, and the same in São Luis.33 There were cases of police brutality and instances where black people with Afros were forced to get haircuts. The negative aspect of black soul and reggae was that they were not political in an organized way, and hence, they had no impact on changing institutional racism. But even this must come with a caveat because, for most youth, this music was not about politics; it was about an opportunity for leisure and having fun.

Notes   1 Ivo Santana, “Estudos Afro-­Asiáticos,” Ano 25, no. 3 (2003): 517–555.   2 Centro de Pesquisa, Documentação História Contemporânea, and Brasil, “CAMARGO, ADALBERTO,” CPDOC—Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil, accessed January 21, 2019, www.fgv.br/cpdoc/

Strategies against racism   79 acervo/dicionarios/verbete-­biografico/camargo-­adalberto. For a discussion on Paulo Maluf, see Alex Cuadros, Brazillionaires: The Godfathers of Modern Brazil (London: Profile Books, 2016), 44–72.   3 Santana, “Estudos Afro-­Asiáticos,” 524.   4 Stephen Bocksay, “Undesired Presences: Samba, Improvisation, and Afro-­Politics in 1970s Brazil,” Latin Amer­ican Research Review 52, no. 1 (2017).   5 The scholar Michael Hanchard dates black soul music to 1967, when a radio DJ by the name of Big Boy played soul music on the radio. However, the Brazilian press did not pick up on black soul until the late 1970s. See Michael George Hanchard, Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, 1945–1988 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 112.   6 Those involved in the movement were often persecuted by the police. One person I interviewed spoke of being forced by the police to get his hair cut because he wore an Afro.   7 For example, Gilberto Freyre, who was once in some ways progressive, during the dictatorship became very reactionary and opposed black soul. See Hanchard, Orpheus and Power, 115. Also see Michael Mitchell for a brief description of black soul. Michael Mitchell, “Blacks and the ‘Abertura Democratica,’ ” in Race, Class, and Power in Brazil, ed. Pierre-­Michel Fontaine (Los Angeles: Center for Afro-­Amer­ican Studies, 1985), 107–109.   8 Chris McGowan and Ricardo Pessanha, The Brazilian Sound Samba, Bossa Nova, and the Popular Music of Brazil (New York: Billboard Books, 1991), 88.   9 McGowan and Pessanha, The Brazilian Sound Samba, 88. 10 Tropicália was youth music popular among the urban (mainly white) middle class. However, some of the biggest stars, such as Jorge Ben and Gilberto Gil, were black. 11 They chose England because it was a place where world youth culture was emerging. Also, England is an excellent example of how this postmodern culture was working. British musicians were listening to black music from America and then, in turn, redefining it, thus influencing the US and the world. See Jim Miller, ed., History of Rock & Roll (New York: Random House/Rolling Stone Press, 1980). 12 Gilberto Gil and Jorge Ben were both part of the Tropicália movement and in many ways were emblematic of the black soul movement. They wrote songs about being proud to be black. They wore their hair in Afros and embraced the black music of the diaspora: soul, reggae, and Afro-­pop. 13 As Darius James points out, not all black exploitation films were exploitative; some were potentially revolutionary. For instance, Melvin Van Peebles’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was required viewing by all Black Panther members because they believed the content was revolutionary. Darius James, That’s Blaxploitation: Roots of the Baadasssss’ Tude (Rated X by an All-­Whyte Jury (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995), 1–12. 14 For in-­depth discussion of black identity in the postmodern culture of Rio de Janeiro, see George Yudice, “The Funkification of Rio,” in Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture, eds. Andrew Ross and Tricia Rose (New York: Routledge, 1994), 193–217. 15 Michael Mitchell suggests this in his article “Blacks and the ‘Abertura Democratica,’ ” 108. Michael Hanchard argues more persuasively that black soul has organic roots. Hanchard, Orpheus and Power, 111–119. 16 Carlos Henrique dos Santos Martins, “A Black Music como expressão cultural juvenil em distintos tempos e espaços,” in Reflexões sobre os “modos de vida” e a socialização dos jovens negros (Niterói: Cadernos Penesb, 2009/2010), 123. 17 Bryan McCann, “Black Pau: Uncovering the History of Brazilian Soul 1,” Journal of Popular Music Studies 14, no. 1 (2002): 33–62. 18 Rafaela Capelossa, “Identidades em diaspora: O movimento black no Brasil,” 12 – teresina – piauí – janeiro fevereiro março de 2012, Livrozilla.com, accessed May 28,

80   Strategies against racism 2019, http://livrozilla.com/doc/258853/identidades-­em-diáspora--o-­movimento-black-­ no-brasil. 19 Carlos Palombini, “Soul Brasileiro E Funk Carioca,” Opus 15, no. 1 (2009): 39. 20 Gilberto Freyre, “Atençao Brasileiros,” Diario de Pernambuco (Recife), “Opinao” section, A-­13, May 15, 1977. Quoted in Hanchard, Orpheus and Power, 134. 21 McGowan and Pessanha, The Brazilian Sound, 197. 22 Kavin Dayanandan Paulraj, “Jamaica Brasileira: The Politics of Reggae in São Luis, Brazil, 1968–2010” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2013), 193–194. 23 I visited Salvador, Bahia, and São Luis, Maranhão in 1992 and interviewed several Afro-­Brazilian Rastafarians. 24 When I visited Pelhorinho in 1992, in a neighborhood in Salvador, Bahia, there was a reggae bar with a shrine of Bob Marley posters. I also visited similar bars in São Luis, Maranhão, and Canoa Quebrada, Ceara. These reggae bars were places where predominantly Afro-­Brazilians socialized. However, in recent years, they have become tourist traps and have lost much of their cultural value. 25 Paulraj, “Jamaica Brasileira,” 187. 26 Juan Flores, From Bomba to Hip-­hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000). Flores, although talking about Latino formations, shows how cultural exchanges work and moreover that African and African-­ Amer­ican exchanges have been crucial. 27 In a YouTube interview in 2002 entitled “Soulschool,” Costa discusses his life as a musician in 1972. www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-­sIKTbbqho. 28 The song “Mas Que Nada” became a hit again with the rap and rhythm and blues group The Black Eyed Peas in 2006. 29 Robert Palmer, “Brazil’s Beat Alters Black Pop,” The New York Times, February 26, 1983. This article was a discussion about racial segregation in the US. 30 Tamir Felipe, “Earth, Wind & Fire só existe por causa de um artista Brasileiro,” May 29, 2017. www.sitediscoteca.com/single-­post/Earth-­Wind-and-­Fire-existe-­por-causa-­ de-um-­artista-brasileiro. 31 Palmer, “Brazil’s Beat Alters Black Pop.” 32 This circulation also includes Western Europe, particularly Britain and France, where black music has a long history since the early twentieth century and perhaps the nineteenth century. See Micol Siegel, Uneven Encounters: Making Race and Nation in Brazil and the United States (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 67–94. 33 Hanchard, Orpheus and Power, 115–116. See Paulraj, “Jamaica Brasileira.”

5 The emergence of black politics in political parties

The 1970s would see the burgeoning of new black movements that had their origins in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The new black movements emerged during the military dictatorship (1964–1985), and both built on the same historical precedents as the FNB and TEN. In addition, both movements emerged when the dictatorship faced economic and political crisis. In other words, the new black movements did not happen in a vacuum. The military dictatorship traditionally relied on US support and, most importantly, on a robust economy. However, by the time of the Carter administration (1976–1980), the US began to distance itself from the dictatorship because of human rights violations. Certain sectors of the elite became wary of state-­ directed industrialism and monopoly capitalism. Economic problems, in part due to the oil crisis of the time, began to help undermine the legitimacy of the military government. A strong labor movement developed during this era in São Paulo, and the Partido Trabalho (PT) would emerge from this movement and become the preeminent opposition party in Brazil. Yet, the black movement was not tied solely to the PT. In the 1980s, the party with which it would gain most success was the PDT.

The PDT: reforming racial democracy and the rise of Moreno power At the center of a new political resurgence of black politics was Abdias do Nascimento. In 1968, after years of activity with TEN and as an activist and artist, he went into voluntary exile in the US because of his radical politics in Brazil and his fear of oppression by the military dictatorship. During this time, he became a full professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo in the Puerto Rican Studies Department and held a chair.1 During his tenure at Buffalo, he wrote several seminal works that helped expose racism in Brazil to an international audience. One of the articles he wrote was for the Journal of Black Studies in 1980. This journal was a hotbed of Afrocentric scholars, such as Molefi Asante, Maulana Karenga, and John Hendrik Clarke‚ who were controversial (and remain controversial) in some academic circles, while being celebrated among many in the black community.2 Asante and Karenga are widely

82   The emergence of black politics known for what came to be called Afrocentric thought. Interestingly, it was the Afrocentric movement that would embrace Pan-­Africanism and prove to be critical in making links with activists and intellectuals such as Nascimento. Nascimento continued to publish in the Journal of Black Studies. As a result, he utilized much of the language that was in vogue in the Afrocentric movement. He was critical of starting the history of people of African heritage with slavery. His essays did rhetorical due diligence in acknowledging that the history of African descendants in the Americas started in Egypt, where African people were purveyors of Western civilization, and that people of African ancestry have a grand and indeed glorious past. This particular Afrocentric approach had been criticized because some argued that it put Egypt at the center of a debatable African history, at the neglect of understanding African sub-­Saharan history and transatlantic African slavery, as well as dealing with the trauma and positioning of people of African ancestry in the black Atlantic context. Moreover, there were questions about how to deal with the agency and enormous cultural impact of people of African ancestry that came out of slavery and Africans’ creolization or hybridity in their new world identity. After all, race is a construct, and discussions of blackness need to be grounded in a specificity of circumstances and analyzed with a class and gender perspective. Frankly, Afrocentric ideologies and their offshoots still seem to resonate on the grassroots level, while the “black Atlantic” and its offshoots seem to have become more popular in academic circles.3 Nevertheless, Nascimento and other Afrocentric thinkers have had great success at the grassroots level; for example, Maluenga Karenga’s Kwanzaa holiday, which he started in the 1960s, has attracted millions of people.4 Quilombismo, in many ways, is interesting in that, even though it embraced much of the Afrocentric language of Asante and Karenga, it was grounded in a Brazilian cosmology. Wilson J. Moses reminds us that Afrocentric thought has a long history in North America. People such as Martin Delaney and David Walker were writing in what Asante and Karenga had deemed Afrocentric ways. Also, even Du Bois’ work was in many ways Afrocentric, including the insistence that dark­skinned people had been in ancient Africa.  Nascimento would enthusiastically embrace much of the Afrocentric worldview that Asante and Karenga had posited, although we must remember that he was engaging with a long history of Afrocentric ideas in the US and throughout the Caribbean. After all, the Jamaican Marcus Garvey had been responsible for leading a mass movement that was in large part based on Afrocentric thought back in the 1920s. In fact, Garvey’s ideas had been read by many in the black movements of the 1930s in São Paulo, even if they were not put into practice. Also, Cheikh Anta Diop, the Senegalese scholar who wrote Civilization or Barbarism,5 was one of the main purveyors of the idea that early Egypt was black, and he had long embraced Afrocentric ideas. Therefore, the Afrocentric idea was not really born with Asante. In reality, there had been a long history of Afrocentric ideology, and, even though it did not go back to before the nineteenth century, there had been many different strands of Afrocentric ideas. Colin

The emergence of black politics   83 Palmer rightly recognizes that the African diaspora was not only part of an Atlantic project that began with slavery, but actually began with the various migrations of Africans in Africa and elsewhere. Palmer’s published work does not have any particular interest in Egyptology but shows that the black Atlantic project was but one of many streams of African migration.6 Therefore, Nascimento’s work should be assessed beyond an Afrocentric perspective and not limited to Asante or Karenga. As the name of Nascimento’s newspaper Quilombo suggests, he was embracing an Afrocentric approach long before he was writing for the Journal of Black Studies. His work was clearly influenced by this new wave of scholarship, but he already had an Afrocentric worldview. Nascimento’s worldview had always had an African diasporic approach, but his essay “Quilombismo” was a theoretical manifesto of the kind of society he hoped for in Brazil. Here are some key points of “Quilombismo,” which outline his vision of a utopian community:   1. Quilombismo is a political movement of Brazilian Blacks, with the goal of implanting in the country a Quilombist National State, inspired by the model of the Republic of Palmares, founded in the sixteenth century, and other quilombos that existed and exist in the country.   2. The National Quilombist State is a free, just, egalitarian, and sovereign state. Quilombist democratic egalitarianism extends to the factors of race, economics, sex, society, religion, politics, justice, education, culture, and all expressions of life in society. The same egalitarianism applies at all levels of power and of public and private institutions.   3. The basic goal of the National Quilombist State is to promote the happiness of the human being. To realize this goal, Quilombismo believes in an economy of a communitarian cooperativist basis in the sectors of production, distribution, and division of the natural wealth and the fruits of collective work.   4. Quilombismo considers land a national asset for collective use. Factories and other industrial installations, all assets and means of production, in the same way as the land, are collective property for the collective use of society. Rural workers or peasants, who work the land, are the owners and managers of agricultural and cattle-­raising institutions. Industrial workers and workers in general, the producers of industrial goods, are solely responsible for the directorship and management of their respective units of production.   5. In Quilombismo, work is a right and a social duty, and the workers, creators of the agricultural and industrial wealth of Quilombist society, are the sole owners of the products of their labor.   6. Black children are and have always been the primary and defenseless victims of the material and moral destitution imposed upon the Afro-­ Brazilian community for centuries. They are therefore the most urgent preoccupation and priority of Quilombismo. Prenatal and maternity care,

84   The emergence of black politics

  7.

  8.

  9.

10.

day-­care services, adequate nutrition, and hygienic and humane housing are some of the items related to the Black child that figure prominently in the Quilombist movement’s program of action. Education and instruction or training on all levels––elementary, secondary, and university––are completely free and open without distinction to all members of Quilombist society. African history, culture, political and economic systems, arts and civilization have an eminent place in scholastic curricula. To create an Afro-­Brazilian University is a necessity within the Quilombist program. Seeking to build a creative society, Quilombismo strives to stimulate the full potential of human beings and its realization. To combat the sluggishness and enforced apathy imposed by habit, poverty, mechanization of existence and bureaucratization of human and social relations, is a central goal. The arts in general occupy a basic space in the educational system and in the social context and activities of Quilombist collectivity. In Quilombismo there will not be “religions” and “popular religions”—that is, religions of the elite, endorsed and legitimized as “true religion,” and religions of the people. All religions deserve equal treatment, respect and guarantees of worship. The Quilombist state prohibits the existence of a state bureaucratic apparatus that impedes or interferes with the vertical mobility of the masses in their direct relation and communication with political leaders. In the dialectical relationship of the members of society with their institutions lies the progressive and dynamic content of Quilombismo.7

At the core of the Quilombismo manifesto, as it is outlined by Nascimento, is a basic reworking of the economic logic of the state. In his paper, he details how he comes to some of his conclusions. He rejects capitalism and reimagines Brazil as essentially a model based on the historic Quilombo of Palmares that lasted nearly 100 years. In key ways, Quilombismo is at home with Asante’s Afrocentric idea, except that Asante’s work never really had any critical analysis of capitalism.8 Nascimento’s manifesto is rooted in political economy, as well as in a rethinking of Brazilian identity. He is imagining the type of world he would like to live in and in what ways. Nascimento envisioned a political project where people of African ancestry could be the primary focus of the nation-­state through a cultural project, where people of African ancestry would be conscious of their African identity, including all the racial distinctions, such as pardo and negro. He believed that, once Afro-­Brazilians were conscious and proud of their African past‚ a new project of economic and cultural development could emerge in which all Brazilians of all races could live in harmonious relations with economic security. This was clearly a utopian vision. In the US, Nascimento found an Afro-­diasporic community that was committed to his vision in the African diaspora and in the context of Africa. This community helped him to continue to nurture his intellectual work. However, he

The emergence of black politics   85 was not only in a community with people of color in the US but in Africa as well. For example, Nascimento was deeply influenced by the decolonization movements that had developed in Africa. Also, he had attended several conferences on the continent and had met leading intellectuals from Africa. He realized that solutions to the problems of the Afro-­Brazilians were particular to Brazilian realities, but also that there was an imperative to understand the commonalities of the Afro-­diasporic reality. Those involved in the Negritude movement in France and the Harlem Renaissance, and Afro-­Cuban artists and activists from the 1940s, had been publishing their ideas in Quilombo. Nascimento had been engaged in notions of Pan-­Africanism since the 1940s when his theatre came of age. Nascimento’s Brazil, Mixture or Massacre: Essays in the Genocide of a Black People (first published in 1979) in some ways anticipated works such as Eduardo Bonilla-­Silva’s Racism without Racists: Color-­Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. In these essays, Nascimento outlined color-­blind racism and how it was operating in the absence of Jim Crow-­style racism. His work was some of the first to theorize structural racism in Brazil. Also, beyond Nascimento’s theorizing and articulating what color-­blind racism was in other works similar to Brazil, Mixture or Massacre, “Quilombismo” attempted to present proposals for combating it. Apparently, he understood there was no one-­size-fits-­all solution, and there was certainly no scientific solution to solving racism. But, there was no harm in reimagining what freedom looked like, even if the ideas had gained inspiration from a maroon community such as Palmares in the 1600s, which had always been a source of inspiration to many Afro-­Brazilians and people who were against oppression. In the end, “Quilombismo” is a praxis of freedom: a manifesto for freedom. In fact, Nascimento’s work as an activist was mostly successful when you consider that, as a political leader, he had enormous influence shaping post-­ military dictatorship Brazil. He was instrumental in collaboration with a vital black movement in helping to set an agenda where affirmative action could be introduced in Brazil. Consequently, laws were put on the books to ensure that the histories of Africa, blacks in the diaspora, and Afro-­Brazilians were taught in Brazil. All major political parties in Brazil, including the PT, PMDB, and the Brazilian Social Democracy Party/Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB), had racial and sexual anti-­discrimination ministries at the city and the state levels. Also, freedom of religion was expanded to include the full rights of Afro-­Brazilian religions. Land rights to former quilombo communities were made law. Due in part to the efforts of people like Nascimento, domestic worker rights were extended and other labor rights changed that had disproportionately affected Afro-­Brazilians. Nascimento was not personally responsible for the changes of all of these laws, but he was one of the major organic intellectuals who articulated the type of society that was possible, and had been advocating for these changes since the 1940s. Moreover, many of these ideas were addressed in Nascimento’s “Quilombo.” For example, in the newspaper Quilombo, Nascimento wrote about TEN’s efforts to organize domestic workers as early as the

86   The emergence of black politics 1940s. Therefore, Quilombismo was the culmination of a long career of thinking and strategizing; thus, we need to understand the actual strategies of this activist and which of them worked and which did not. In exile, Nascimento was able to think through many of his aspirations for people of color in Brazil and find a way to institutionalize the black movement in conjunction with the PDT.

Quilombismo and institutional politics Leonel Brizola, while in exile in the US, became friends with Nascimento. In exile, they met several times and mapped out a vision of ways to integrate the black movement into institutional politics. Brizola was a long-­time power broker in Brazilian politics and had maintained an alliance with the black movement, so when he subsequently became governor of Rio de Janeiro, he appointed blacks to important positions within his cabinet: Carlos Alberto Cao was made Secretary of Labor, Edialeda Salcado Nascimento was made Minster of Social Promotion, and Carlos Mango Nazareth was appointed head of the Military Police in Rio de Janeiro. Nascimento also became a congressman from Rio de Janeiro and later a senator. His party was responsible for nominating and electing two black governors, one from Rio Grande do Sul and the other from Espírito do Santos. The PDT nominated Albuíno de Azeredo, who would become the first black governor of Espírito do Santos. He was born in Vila Velha, Espírito do Santos on January 21, 1945, the son of Albuíno Ferreira de Azeredo and Normilia Cunha de Azeredo. He would lose his father at the age of 8. Black and of humble origin, as a child he worked in a variety of jobs, from street vendor to soccer player at a soccer club in the capital of Espírito do Santos, Victoria. He was an extremely gifted child and won a scholarship to the private Marista School, which allowed him to obtain a proper education and a chance to enter the Federal University of Espírito do Santos. Later, he moved to Rio de Janeiro and studied computer science and business administration at the Pontifical Catholic University (1968–1969).9 Showing great talent, he was invited by a former professor to join the state company Vale do Rio Doce, where he held the positions of permanent engineer and head of the civil engineering division. In 1977, he founded his own company, Engenharia e Estudos Ferroviários, which was to have offices in five states in Brazil, as well as representation in London, with a monthly turnover of one million dollars.10 He was affiliated with the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), a party opposed to the military regime, established in April of 1964, which was dissolved on November 29, 1979. After the consequent party reformulation, he joined the Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). He served as Secretary of Planning for the City of Cariacica (ES). When he was appointed Secretary of Planning and Transport for Espírito do Santos in 1988 by Governor Max Mauro (1987–1991), he developed the Transcol project, which organized collective transportation in Vitória.11

The emergence of black politics   87 At the beginning of 1990, by appointment of the former governor of Bahia and then federal deputy Waldir Pires, he joined the Labor Democratic Party (PDT) and ran for governor of Espírito do Santos. In the October elections, he defeated José Inácio Ferreira from the Workers Social Party/Partido Social Trabalhista (PST) by 44% to 36% in the first round, and 51% to 25% in the second. Once in office in March 1991, he appointed his partners Saturnino and Arnaldo Mauro, brothers of the former governor Max Mauro, to the positions of Secretary of Education and Director of the Roads Department. In April 1991, he was accused by federal deputy Rita Camata of having been involved in a case of fraudulent competition during his time in the Planning Department, in addition to appointing second-­degree relatives of the former governor. In September, he publicly supported President Fernando Collor de Melo, defending a coalition government centered on reviewing foreign debt and encouraging public education and agriculture. In August of the following year, however, Albuíno Ferreira de Azeredo reportedly left a march led by Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, president of the Workers Party (PT), that was held in the capital of his state, Vitória, asking for the impeachment of Fernando Collor, thus proving that as governor Albuíno Ferreira de Azeredo remained rather independent of political ideology.  Alceu de Deus Collares was a lawyer and Brazilian politician. He was governor of Rio Grande do Sul from 1991 to 1995. He was also a federal deputy for five terms and mayor of Porto Alegre from 1986 to 1989. Born on September 12, 1927 in Bagé, Rio Grande do Sul, Alceu Collares came from a poor family and had to drop out of school at the age of 11 to work as a grocer. At the age of 16, he began working as a postman and, later, as a telegraph operator. He returned to his studies and graduated from the classical course in 1956, and then entered the Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. In the same year, he moved to Porto Alegre where, as a law student, he joined the Brazilian Labor Party, and approached Leonel Brizola. He graduated as a lawyer in 1960. Alceu was a supporter of Grêmio Foot-­Ball Porto-­Alegrense, his great passion, where he had served for many years as a club advisor.12  In 1964, he was elected for the first time to the position of councilman. Because of the military coup of 1964, the political parties were disbanded, creating more intense bipartisanship. Collares joined the MDB, an opposition party to the military dictatorship. In the MDB, he was elected federal deputy in 1970, receiving the most votes of those on the ballot in Rio Grande do Sul. When he was re-­elected in 1974, he received the most votes in the state. In 1978, he was elected again, with 120,000 votes, and became the leader of the MDB bench. In the same year, he founded the Institute of Political Studies Pedroso Horta.13 With the beginning of democratization in Brazil after the dictatorship, Collares participated in the reorganization of the Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB), but a dispute ensued over who had control of the name of the Partido Trabalhista. Collares’s rival, Ivete Vargas, would win a decision with the Superior Electoral Court, which gave Ivete Vargas and her group control over the name, thus becoming the leader of the PTB. After that, Collares would help co-­found the PDT. Collares would subsequently become a candidate for the

88   The emergence of black politics g­ overnment of Rio Grande Sul, but was defeated in 1982 by Jair Soares, and finished in third place.14 He was the first mayor of Porto Alegre after the re-­democratization, ruling from 1986 to 1988. It was a mandate of three years, in order to adjust the Brazilian electoral calendar. He was the first black mayor of the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, and later the first black governor of the state. In 1990, with the support of Leonel Brizola, who in the 1989 presidential elections received 60% of the gaucho votes, Collares was elected with 2,319,400 votes for the 1991–1994 term. In the state government, he eliminated the Secretary of Justice and Security position and proceeded to deal directly with the Chiefs of the Civil Police and the Military Brigade. He imposed a moratorium in 1991 on suppliers who failed to pay the civil service. In his government, the growth of the gaucho GDP reached 6.4%, a historical record for the state, and an accumulated growth of 23.43%.15 He promised a revolution in education, and this issue became the most confrontational and controversial of his government. He named his wife, Neuza Canabarro, Secretary of Education, and began to implement Centros Integrados de Educação Pública (CIEP), full-­time teaching centers, just as he had done during his visit to the city of Porto Alegre. The creation of a revolving calendar, which had three different alternating academic years, created discord and caused its popularity to fall. In 1994, Collares was elected a governor of Rio Grande do Sul for the next four years; he then was elected a federal deputy in 1998, a position to which he was re-­elected in 2002. During this period, he was deputy leader of the PDT (1999), deputy leader of the PDT-­PPS block (2001–2002), chairman of the Commission on Social Security and Family (1999), and chair of the Committee on Foreign Relations and National Defense of the Chamber of Deputies (2006). Both of these governors represented real examples of how blacks could win positions of power if they had the proper support in their political parties. However, both were exceptional in the sense that they were highly educated and had long experience in politics and, as an engineer and a lawyer, respectively, had technical know-­how. Also, although they were black politicians, this did not play a major role in their politics, unlike Nascimento who put race at the center of his politics. Albuíno de Azeredo and Collares were both born poor and black and did not shy away from this, but they also did not necessarily put the same emphasis that Nascimento did. Nevertheless, it was the PDT commitment to ethnic diversity or what their national leadership called Moreno Socialism that made it possible for these candidates to be successful. Yet as technocrats, they focused on solving specific policy issues that would presumably help the majority of the population. The PDT was a social-­democratic party; therefore, its policies tended to be left of center during the era when Brizola was the leader of the party. The issue of black representation was critical for Brizola, and as a result, his focus on that, and the individual agency of these men, made sure that this would happen. In other words, both Collares and de Azeredo were highly successful without the help of Brizola or PDT support, but with this support,

The emergence of black politics   89 both men were unstoppable. Therefore, Brizola was clever enough to understand the importance of black candidates if they were marketed in the correct way.

Celso Pitta and the new black conservative tradition In 1996, a black politician from the center right by the name of Celso Pitta would become mayor of São Paulo. He also would downplay the issue of racism in Brazil but was proud to carry the mantle of the first black mayor of São Paulo. Thus, he played up the idea of racial democracy and the idea that Brazil was a country where anyone could make it through hard work. He had enormous party support due to the fact that his number one supporter was Paulo Maluf, a titan at that time in São Paulo politics. Like de Azeredo and Collares, Pitta came from humble origins, the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, but would overcome this with an elite education, a degree in economics, and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics. He became an economist, and he would eventually work for Maluf ’s private company and later in his administration. He was handpicked by Maluf to run for mayor of São Paulo. Pitta would serve his term as mayor but would face corruption charges and eventually, along with his wife, become implicated in several corruption scandals. It would also be uncovered that Maluf for years had been involved in high levels of corruption, as well. He eventually would go to jail. Pitta died of cancer in 2009. Because of the scandals, his term as mayor was a disaster. Moreover, his politics, unlike those of Nascimento and the PDT black governors, had not focused on eradicating social inequality. They were more focused on a pro-­business agenda, such as cutting bureaucracy, cutting taxes, and having all citizens take social responsibility. Nevertheless, Pitta’s blackness was not disconnected from the symbolism of black politics. For example, he was a supporter and colleague of Evaldo Britto and invited him to work in his administration, and the first self-­declared black federal congressman Adalberto Camargo mentored him. However, in many ways, Pitta and even the two black governors from the PDT who were not embroiled in scandal did not really have the same lasting power and influence as Benedita da Silva, although Silva helped organize the PT from the ground up. She was one of the first to run for the party at the time when Brazil was moving from a military dictatorship to a civil society. Because she was able to organize the community and integrate concrete issues, she had enormous success in electoral politics, and by the late 1990s, almost all the major parties would pay lip service to many of the demands of the black movement, including affirmative action. Indeed, it was the centrist Fernando Henrique Cardoso who would begin to implement affirmative action programs, not the PT or PDT, on a national level. Yet, a major transformation in Brazilian society remained elusive for the black movement. In many ways, the black movement became institutionalized by the late 1980s. Nearly every urban center was involved with the black movement, and in recent years it has acted as a watchdog to combat racism in Brazilian

90   The emergence of black politics society. Moreover, by the 1980s, the black movement started to have success in the electoral arena. Black politicians such as Pitta focused on personal responsibility and agency through hard work as the way to succeed. Others argued for this approach but had more concrete policies, such as quotas, anti-­racist laws, and addressing particular issues in the favela, including running water and other infrastructure components. Also, more overall investment and spending in poorer communities was promoted politically, and other politicians participated in obvious symbolism, such as using the Afro-­Brazilian football star Pelé to represent Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s otherwise all white administration as the Extraordinary Minister for Sport. Indeed, the PDT was the first party under Brizola to take seriously the need for diversity in government. After Brizola, many governments began to make more overtures in regard to symbolism.

From Gonzalez to Benedita da Silva: reformer from an outlaw tradition In 1979, the Workers Party, known as the PT, emerged. This party would lead Brazil to several victories in the electoral sphere by the 1980s when democracy began to develop in Brazil. In the late 1970s, the PDT would try to court one of the main leaders of the black movement in Brazil. Her name was Leila Gonzalez. She was born Leila de Almeida in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in 1935 and would die in 1994 in Rio de Janeiro. She was the next to last of eighteen children. Her mother was of indigenous origin, and her father was of African heritage. Her father worked as a train operator and her mother as a domestic for an Italian family. Because Gonzalez was the next to last of the sisters and brothers, she was the only one in her family to have the resources to get a formal education. This was particularly due to her brother, Jamie de Almeida. Her brother was in many ways able to change the trajectory of the family—Jamie de Almeida became a famous football player and moved the entire family to Rio in 1940 when Leila was 5 years of age. This allowed Gonzalez an opportunity to go to good primary and secondary schools, which, in turn, allowed her to go to university, which, unfortunately, was something extremely rare for people of African ancestry in Brazil in the 1950s. In 1958, she received a degree in history and geography. In 1962, she completed a degree in philosophy at the state university of Rio de Janeiro, and she would go on to complete a master’s degree and a doctoral degree. As a young adult, Gonzalez was not in tune with her African ancestry or the racism that existed at the time. In an interview, she related this later in her life in 1986, when talking about her relationship to the black movement: My relationship was always a strange thing … the more you distance yourself from your community in ideological terms, the more insecure you become and the more you internalize the issue of the whitening ideology. You end up creating mechanisms for you to hold back, there was, for example a phase that I became deeply spiritual. It was a way of rejecting my

The emergence of black politics   91 own body. This question of whitening hit very hard on me and I know it hits strong on blacks, too.16 In her academic success, she felt a kind of alienation, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s. She did not necessarily identify with being a person of African ancestry. She embraced the Eurocentric education that she received. However, she did not escape racism. One example that had a devastating impact on her was when she found a man she adored and who adored her. This was Luiz Carlos Gonzalez, whom she would marry in 1968. The problem was that he was white, of Spanish origin, and his family rejected her. When it came time to get married, I went to marry a white guy. Soon, what was repressed, all the process of internalization of a discourse of racial democracy came to light and was a direct contact with a very hard reality. My husband’s family felt that our marriage regime was, as I call it, concubines because a black woman does not legally marry a white man; it is a mixture of concubines with slut, ultimately. When they found out that we were lawfully married, there came the violent stick upon me; of course I became a “prostitute,” a “dirty black” and things of that level … but my husband was a very nice guy, took the whole process of discrimination of his family, and remained until his death.17 In many ways, she recognized her marriage to her first husband as an awakening to how racism was functioning in Brazil. Gonzalez saw himself as a victim of the system as well, and as a tribute, she paid homage to him by keeping his last name until her death. She married for her last time Vincente Marota, whom she defined as a mulatto. She said: After this traumatic experience that I had with the family of Luiz Carlos and with his suicide, there was my second marriage. I married a mulatto––white father and black mother––as they say in Bahia, a weak link. He had a class ideology, he did not like blacks … We stayed together for five years, it was funny because, while I was looking for myself, he tried to run away from himself, even though people liked him a lot. Our relationship was not a good match. We split up and my head danced, after all I was married to a white guy, of Spanish origin, who gave me complete support on the racial question, and when I married a guy of black origin, he does not have this solidarity, he disguised that side. I went to the psychoanalyst.18 After her second marriage, she did not only explore psychoanalysis. She became more linked to Candomblé, the Afro-­Brazilian religion. She began to take more interest in the African dimensions of Brazilian culture and to put the African component at the center of Brazilian experience. Gonzalez began to immerse herself in cultural and political movements. In the late 1970s, a number of college-­educated Afro-­Brazilians not only began to

92   The emergence of black politics rearticulate themselves through the realm of culture, but they also began to embark on political projects reminiscent of the FNB in the 1930s—which was one of Brazil’s most important black political organizations. At the beginning of the military government, the economy did improve, and as a result, the middle class expanded. More colleges and universities began to open up, and more blacks were admitted. Many blacks of this time were influenced by the black soul movement and began to explore their Afro-­Brazilian identity. As a result, they began to form Afro-­Brazilian student organizations that were predominantly cultural in nature. Many of these student organizations served as the nuclei for the black movement. By the late 1970s, Afro-­Brazilians no longer allowed the military government to silence them. This small black middle class realized that silence was not going to destroy racism but would help to preserve it. Therefore, when the military began to allow more political debate, they placed the question of racism in the foreground. There were two events that led to the mobilization of many in the Afro-­Brazilian community. One was the murder by the police of an Afro-­Brazilian youth, Robson Silverira da Luz. The other incident that provoked a major reaction among black activists was that the Tiete Yacht Club refused to allow black youth to participate in the volley team because of their color. These events led to a major demonstration (1978), where over two thousand people came to protest racial discrimination. This event marked the beginning of a new black movement. The movement drew inspiration from the liberation movements in Africa and the civil rights movements in the US. The black movement also tended to be Marxist or left-­wing in political orientation. For the first time, unlike its predecessors, the black movement addressed issues of class and gender in a more comprehensive way. Also, Afro-­Brazilian women would gain significant leadership positions in the movement for the first time. Two examples were Leila Gonalez and Benedita da Silva, though they still continued to face problems of sexism. Afro-­Brazilian women also began to develop their own organizations, such as the Geledes lnstituto da Mulher Negra, which addressed problems particular to Afro-­Brazilian women. The three main issues on which they focused were human rights, racial equality, and health care for women. The new black movement may have had its antecedents in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, but it became a truly national project and was not quite as hierarchical as the FNB had been. It was called the Unified Black Movement Against Racial Discrimination (MNUCDR) or simply the Unified Black Movement (MNU). The MNU spread its message through Centros de Luta (CL or centers for struggle). These centers for struggle were units made up of five Afro-­Brazilians, who were present wherever Afro-­Brazilians gathered, for example, the samba schools, Umbanda and Candomblé temples, and other places where Afro-­Brazilians were heavily represented. The centers of struggle organized themselves at the municipal level, and sent representatives to the state level, who sent representatives to conferences on the national level. The

The emergence of black politics   93 MNU was instrumental in fostering racial consciousness and was able to make small political advances. Gonzalez would run for congress and lose, though she would become in Brazil what is called “suplente” (which is a substitute congressman or a person who takes over in case something happens to the elected official). Although she did not win, she was responsible for institutionalizing a political movement, in her case the PT. What was impressive and needs to be further studied was her ability to combine a class analysis with gender and sexuality in the context of race. Moreover, what is important to note is she did not dismiss past black movements in Brazil. She saw the FNB from the 1930s and TEN from the 1940s as critical and the basis of the modern-­day black movement. However, she gave important critical analyses of older black movements. For example, she critiqued the FNB’s xenophobia and its lack of class analysis. She said: The FNB (again the FNB was the Black Front, a black organization that fought for the equality of blacks in Brazil in the 1930s) did not fight for the inclusion of Blacks into the world of labor. This becomes clear when we observe, for instance, the type of denunciations they directed against the immigrants. The latter were looked upon as white foreigners who took the place of Blacks in the labor market, but were not considered as working class.19 She also leveled the same criticism against the black Brazilian theatre known as TEN, when she said: Because they did not preoccupy themselves with the integration of blacks into the Brazilian labor market by denouncing the contradiction of the system; because they assumed a paternalistic attitude in relationship to black people; because their leaderships were paternalistic and authoritarian; and because they failed to combine the specific with the general, these two movements failed to motivate the black population as a whole and still less Brazilian society in general.20 Indeed, she also realized that women’s role in the black movement was fundamental. In regard to a conference she participated in, she said: We finally approved a bill, a resolution on what might be called “double militancy.” This means that externally our priority is the struggle against racial discrimination. On this level, women are side by side with their brothers. Internally, however, women’s activities will be directed towards the machismo of our comrades and deepening discussions about ourselves. If we really wish to bring about the birth of a new society.21 For Gonzalez, the black experience was one that was grounded in an African diaspora.22 We can determine this because her inspirations were found in Frantz

94   The emergence of black politics Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. She saw the diversity of people of African ancestry as a plus and was not preoccupied by silencing that diversity. She made connections to the decolonization movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The civil rights movement in the US and the black power movement in the US also influenced her.23 Many Brazilians of all colors on the “left” and the “right” have been particularly critical of something called black soul in Rio de Janeiro. It still remains a point of controversy. This is interesting because it brings up problematic understandings that Amer­icans are facing with so-­called cultural appropriation. The most organic movement of the 1970s was the black soul movement because this was the one that occurred from the bottom up. In many ways, black soul reflected the ideals of the outlaw culture from the colonial period. Urban Afro-­Brazilian youth began to define their blackness in new ways. They began to embrace many “subversive” aspects of black culture from the US and to create a new black identity. Also, mass communication had a huge impact on this and on Brazilian popular culture in general. As I have discussed in the previous chapter, the black youth movement directly challenged meanings of national identity. However, the black soul movement in many ways was potentially dangerous. It challenged the myth of Brazil as a racial democracy where other cultural movements at that time, such as the Tropicália movement, were redefining the national identity but were not necessarily contradicting the symbols and ideals of the elite. The black soul movement directly challenged the status quo. Gonzalez was a leading proponent of black soul, and she did not buy into the nationalistic arguments that black Brazilian culture was somehow being ruined by black soul. She also recognized these spaces as ways of organizing and raising awareness about racism and as a way of connecting to a larger black struggle against racism. In her book, Lugar de Negro (The Place of Black People), Gonzalez points out that the black movement was actually several different movements. To make her point, she described the diversity of the black experience during slavery. It ranged from the Malé revolt, to Homen do Rosário, which were black brotherhoods, to the Yoruba practices of Candomblé. For her, building a black movement was akin to building a social justice movement in the context of this diversity of differences. However, all of these black groups faced racism that affected their life chances. At the heart of Gonzalez’s work was accepting diversity and focusing on what Sly Stone, the great soul musician, called everyday people—the working class and non-­elites. Also, women had to be at the center of fighting racism to realize that racism was part of the African diaspora story, that separate national or local stories could not be denied, and that central to the black people’s story was an international one. Indeed, many in the black movement were influenced by Gonzalez, but few had been able to gain the same kind of prominence as Benedita da Silva.

The emergence of black politics   95

Benedita da Silva I was born in the Chapéu Mangueira favela in Rio de Janeiro––a girl, black and from a very poor family. From an early age I knew and felt what that meant: social, racial and gender-­based prejudice. I suffered, but I responded. And that response has taken me from being an activist to becoming a federal minister and senator.24 The story of Benedita da Silva is an important one because of the intersectionality of it all. Da Silva was not just born poor but black and a woman as well. Yet, Da Silva would climb to even higher heights in electoral politics than Leila Gonzalez. She would become a local councilwoman, federal congresswoman for one of Rio de Janeiro’s poorest districts, and a senator, and she was ultimately elected governor of Rio de Janeiro.25 What marked Benedita da Silva was her willingness to carry on much of the work of the modern black movement. In fact, Leila Gonzalez was a role model and mentor for Da Silva. Indeed, it was the social movements that helped her to find her path to success as a politician and activist. Da Silva never ran away from the question of racism, particularly when it affected people of African ancestry, and like Gonzalez, she became one of the foremost leaders in ideas of intersectionality. Also, part of what made Da Silva strong was that her gender and class positioning were instrumental in shaping her identity and politics. In fact, Da Silva became a leader in the Workers Party from its inception in 1980. The PT and the PDT were unique in their approaches because they were the first parties in Brazil that realized that, in order to have mass appeal, they would have to intersect issues of class, race, and gender in very real ways.26 In Brazil, racism was not protected as free speech, and in 1988, the law was strengthened. Racist speech became illegal. Da Silva and her party were instrumental in these laws. Also, in Brazil quota systems were passed to help ensure better representation of people of African ancestry in colleges and in public jobs. Da Silva was also a proponent of establishing quotas of black representation in soap operas. She was successful in passing laws establishing some of these quotas but not successful in television or in political representation.27 In 2002, the party of Lula da Silva would actually come to power. During Lula’s administration (2002–2010), abject poverty was lowered, and for the first time, Brazil saw a basic improvement in social needs, such as ending hunger through such programs as Bolsa Familia, and there was a large expansion of the middle class. These improvements were disproportionally beneficial to people of African ancestry who were overwhelmingly locked out. Also, after Lula da Silva’s administration, there was a decrease in social inequality.28 However, by the time of the administration of Dilma Roussef (2014–2016), there was a recession, and some of the economic gains were lost. Also, because of the recession, there was a spotlight on what was still wrong with Brazil. For one, the long history of corruption and privilege had given power to individuals who knew how to curry the favor of special interests. Also, although post-­secondary

96   The emergence of black politics education had improved with a massive expansion of federal and state universities,29 and there were several programs to give scholarships to go to private colleges that were in concert with affirmative action programs, overall, primary and secondary public schools had very low standards. A large number of students in Brazil were functionally illiterate and a great number had never completed high school, and this was still particularly true for people of African ancestry who had no access to private education. Private primary and secondary schools are where Brazilians compete to enter college. If they do not have a good secondary education, they will not be able to even qualify for college. Still, Brazil was beginning to see a real black and pardo middle class emerge, and there were also some improvements for the average person of color. Yet, there was still enormous racism in Brazil, and because of some of the gains of affirmative action, a reactionary politics emerged. Probably the most notable articulation of this has been by Jair Bolsonaro, who has argued for the end of quotas and affirmative action programs. Also, he has been a critic of all programs that have arguably benefited people of African ancestry, such as the various social programs like Bolsa Familia. He is critical of the concerns of people of African ancestry about security and police violence against innocent residents. By the 1990s, there was an institutionalization of the black movement in political parties. Afro-­Brazilians were primarily in the PDT or PT. However, other parties such as PSDB, the party of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, would also support some of the demands of the black movement, including affirmative action. With the rise of PSDB, from 1994 to 2002 and from 2003 until 2017 of the PT, the rights desired by the black movement were partially institutionalized and respected by the major parties. However, in 2018, with the election of Jair Bolsonaro, the black movement faced an enormous setback. All of the linchpin achievements of affirmative action are under attack, and diversity in the public sphere is under siege. Also, although there was some progress in ending extreme poverty, Brazil still has enormous disparities between people of color (pardos and negroes) and whites (brancos). In fact, racial disparities are far worse in Brazil than in the US.

Notes   1 The US black press in the 1970s frequently covered artistic and intellectual endeavors.   2 Paul Gilroy has been an avid critic, as has been Henry Louis Gates, though Gates’s criticism has been nuanced, and he initially was a supporter of the first edition of The Afrocentric Idea, for which he gave a glowing review. Also, in recent years, Asante has come under criticism from black leftists, including the activist and editor of the Black Agenda, Glen Ford. Criticism has also been leveled by Marc Lamont Hill and even Cornel West, who has embraced many aspects of the Afrocentric agenda but has distanced himself from other aspects of recent political and academic debates in regard to pedagogical questions and as to who should teach in an African Studies Department. This discussion sheds light on some of the thorny questions of

The emergence of black politics   97 praxis. See www.blackagendareport.com/content/molefi-­asante-portrait-­redbaitingbootlicking-­rat.   3 Since Paul Gilroy’s work, his ideas have impacted academic and ethnic studies in particular. The book with the strongest impact is Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).   4 Keith Mayes, Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African-­Amer­ican Holiday Tradition (New York: Routledge, 2009).   5 Cheikh Anta Diop and Yaa-­Lengi Meema Ngemi, Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology (Chicago: Chicago Review, 1991).   6 Colin A. Palmer, “Defining and Studying the Modern African Diaspora,” The Journal of Negro History 85, no. 1/2 (2000): 27–32.   7 Abdias do Nascimento, “Quilombismo: An Afro-­Brazilian Political Alternative,” Journal of Black Studies 11, no. 2 (December, 1980): 168–170.   8 In a debate between Stokely Carmichael and Molefi Asante, it becomes clear that Asante had a very different analysis of political economy than Nascimento, who was more in line with Pan-­Africanist thinking. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3 zoIaSp0Kk.   9 “Albuíno Cunha de Azeredo 1945–2018 | Folha Diária,” accessed May 27, 2019, www.folhadiaria.com.br/materia/54/3186/politica/nacional/albuino-­cunha-de-­azeredo1945-2018. 10 “Albuíno Cunha de Azeredo 1945–2018 | Folha Diária.” 11 “Albuíno Cunha de Azeredo 1945–2018 | Folha Diária.”  12 “Alceu Collares de Quitandeiro a Governador,” Sul 21, May 17, 2010, accessed May 27, 2019, www.sul21.com.br/ultimas-­noticias/politica/2010/05/alceu-­collares-de-­ quitandeiro-a-­governador/. 13 “Alceu de Deus Colares,” CPDOC – Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil, accessed May 27, 2019. www.fgv.br/Cpdoc/Acervo/ dicionarios/verbete-­biografico/alceu-­de-deus-­colares.  14 Rose Saconi, “Brizola Queria PTB, Mas Funda o PDT – Brasil,” Estadão, May 26, 2010, accessed May 27, 2019. https://brasil.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,brizola-­ queria-ptb-­mas-funda-­o-pdt-­imp-,556753. 15 “Alceu de Deus Colares,” Lideranças, accessed May 27, 2019, www.liderancas.com. br/lideranca/alceu-­de-deus-­collares.html; “Alceu Collares de Quitandeiro a Governador.” 16 Alex Ratts and Flavia Rios, Lélia Gonzalez (São Paulo: Summus, 2010), 29. 17 Ratts and Rios, Lélia Gonzalez, 37–38. 18 Ratts and Rios, Lélia Gonzalez, 41–42. 19 Lelia Gonzalez, “The Unified Black Movement: A New Stage in Political Mobilization,” in Race, Class, and Power in Brazil, ed. Pierre-­Michel Fontaine (Los Angeles: Center for Afro-­Amer­ican Studies), 131. 20 Gonzalez, “The Unified Black Movement,” 131. 21 Gonzalez, “The Unified Black Movement,” 129–130. 22 Gonzalez, “The Unified Black Movement,” 132. 23 Ratts and Rios, Lélia Gonzalez, 88–101. 24 Benedita Da Silva, “Who Says I Can’t?” Americas Quarterly (Spring, 2012), 75, www.questia.com/read/1P3–2672727741/who-­says-i-­can-t. 25 Da Silva, “Who Says I Can’t?” 26 Medea Benjamin and Maria Luisa Mendonça, “Benedita da Silva,” NACLA Report on the Americas 31, no. 1 (1997). 27 As of 2018, there was only one self-­identified black senator, Paulo Paim. See his website: www25.senado.leg.br/web/senadores/senador/-/perfil/825. 28 Some of his achievements are summarized in Steve Kingstone, “How President Lula Changed Brazil,” BBC, October 2, 2010, accessed January 7, 2019, www.bbc.co.uk/ news/world-­latin-america-­11458409. Also see “Lula’s Legacy,” The Economist,

98   The emergence of black politics ­ eptember 30, 2010, accessed January 7, 2019, www.economist.com/briefing/ S 2010/09/30/lulas-­legacy. 29 “Higher Education,” C Class Doubled in Size in the Brazilian Favelas | O Brasil da Mudança, March 15, 2017, accessed January 7, 2019, www.brasildamudanca.com.br/ en/educacao/higher-­education-0.

Conclusion

In 1993, one of the most critical Amer­ican scholars specializing in Brazilian history, Thomas Skidmore, published an article entitled “Bi-­Racial USA vs. Multi-­Racial Brazil: Is the Contrast Still Valid?” in the Journal of Latin Amer­ ican Studies.1 The article showed that the idea of a bi-­racial USA contrasted with a multi-­racial Brazil was no longer a legitimate way of discussing the racial differences in Brazil. Skidmore suggested there no longer was a valid need to organize discussions of racism in Brazil and the United States as quantitatively very different. In this book I have argued that there was a moment in which the contrast made sense. However since the civil rights era in the United States, the comparison has made less sense. In part because of activism among the black population and their ability to access information from other African diasporas in Europe, Africa, and the United States, there much more in the way of linkages and constructions of black identity. In recent years, it has become clear that the degree of color-­blind racism has ebbed and flowed depending on its moment in history. The election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018 can be considered reactionary because of his hostility to affirmative action and not recognizing racism as a problem in Brazil. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, the first black president—who gave many the illusion of racial democracy in the United States—was followed by the election of Donald Trump in 2016, who can also be considered reactionary to racial equality in the US. Therefore we are now in an era where there is ample evidence to show that neither country has in any way defeated racism––both countries have different forms of color-­blind racism. Thus reinforcing that in the US, a new system of racial oppression emerged in the 1960s. With the successes of the civil rights movement, there was a transformation in how racism was practiced in the United States. With the beginning of the Ronald Reagan era in the early 1980s, this system first came into focus as a form of color-­blind racism. Also with the end of the dictatorship in Brazil in 1985, there was a revolution, and by the 1990s, under the leadership of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the question of racial justice was put on the table and addressed though not resolved, but under Lula da Silva there was a sustained effort to address social inequality. Still, racial inequality continues to be a problem in Brazil as black people remain disproportionally at the bottom of that society.

100   Conclusion No longer does Brazil seem to be worthy of being considered the center of racial democracy or even a place where people of color ever are treated humanely. However, with the rise of the militancy of the civil rights movement and more recently the rise of Barack Obama, the first black US president, the myth of the US as a racial democracy seems to have become somewhat more believable, or has it?2 A close evaluation of the rhetoric of the current US president (Donald Trump) might call that into question and, more importantly, people of African heritage still are disproportionately at the bottom of the society.3 In reality, with the rise of the interconnectivity of the internet, the black struggle has indeed become international. Symbols of blackness have become internationalized in Europe, North America, and Latin America. Howard Winant was right when he said that the world is a ghetto.4 So where does this leave us? How do we move beyond the nation-­state and address anti-­black racism? How can we address color-­blind racism? How do you fight racism that is a mask and cannot be assumed? This has been one of the primary questions of black movements in Brazil since the nineteenth century. One of the ways to address these questions has always been to broadcast racism and expose how it works on a day-­to-day level and attack the worst aspects of it. In Brazil, up until 1888, slavery was the worst aspect of racism because the worst forms of human oppression were maintained, through forms of racial understanding. White people and indigenous people could not be slaves. Therefore, part of the justification for ending slavery was because it was a racialized system. The abolitionists were arguing that all men were created equal in the eyes of the law. No person of color was truly free under slavery. However, when slavery was ended, people of color were still discriminated against in public spaces, such as parks or ice-­skating rinks. Also, they were excluded from social clubs and discriminated against in the job market. Their mental capacity was questioned, but, compared to the rest of the Western world, Brazil seemed to be a country of racial harmony because the discrimination people of African ancestry faced was not legally assumed. Brazilians in many cases often bragged of Brazil as a place where race was not an issue. A person who worked hard could make socio-­economic advances in Brazil. After all, no laws were prohibiting them from doing so. Unfortunately, people of African ancestry believed this myth throughout the western hemisphere and particularly in the US. Black intellectuals and the black press loved Brazil and saw it as an example that the US could emulate. However, by the end of War World II, neither Afro-­Brazilians nor African-­Amer­icans believed Brazil could justifiably be argued to be a racial democracy. There were cracks in the mask, and black newspapers such as Quilombo, as well as other media, began to challenge this narrative. The narrative of racial democracy was revived with a vengeance by the military dictatorship, which desperately wanted to portray Brazil as a racial democracy, in particular to the newly-­liberated African countries that it wished to trade with. Politicians like Adalberto Carmargo played to both sides of this by using it as a way to promote Afro-­Brazilians and Africa. He was a very successful congressman in an era when freedom of speech was limited, and very few

Conclusion   101 resources were going into the black community. Carmargo was able to use racial democracy as a way to advance a black agenda. Moreover, black youth began a cultural revolution by using consumerism and capitalism that suited their identity as a way to reject a white understanding of what it meant to be Brazilian. This was done by the embrace of reggae in the northeast of Brazil, mainly in Maranhão and Bahia, but also throughout the region. In the south of Brazil, particularly in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the black soul movement emerged. This rejection of the youth in the 1970s and 1980s allowed for transnational understandings of blackness. People of African ancestry began to embrace music and fashion aesthetics from Jamaica and the United States. Over time, Afro-­ Brazilians refashioned these forms of music and culture for Brazilian consumption that maintained a diasporic dimension. More importantly, black consciousness emerged among a small group of black students, artists, activists, and emerging politicians. In the political sphere, Abdias do Nascimento and Benedita da Silva were examples of people of African ancestry who fought racism directly. In doing so, they were able to address specific issues concerning racial inequality as it pertains to black people. For example, addressing the question of affirmative action, establishing the rights of lands called Quilombos, and addressing more representation of people of African ancestry on television and in Brazilian movies, and the recognition of people of African heritage in history in public schools were all issues used to address racial inequality. Therefore there were significant gains that were attained because of the black movement. In Brazil, however, this small group of activists until today have not ignited the passions of the majority of people of African ancestry. Scholars have called into question the ideas of the black movement and have dismissed much of the movement on a variety of grounds. Some dismiss race as a social construct and believe that organizing around blackness is problematic at best and destructive at worst. Others dismiss the black movement as racist. Therefore they dismiss affirmative action and other redresses that deal with precisely the problems of Afro-­Brazilians. Interestingly these writers prevail on the “left” and the “right.”5 Also, the attacks on the black movement and the linking to a broader African diaspora are nothing new. People of African ancestry in Brazil have a vibrant and sophisticated understanding of what it means to be black in Brazil. The United States has fundamentally changed paradigms since the 1960s, mainly because of the civil rights movement, which also helps bring a shift of demographics which promises to ensure that the United States will no longer be a white majority society and in many ways will resemble Brazil and, as Thomas Skidmore predicted, is no longer a bi-­racial society but rather is a multi-­racial society. The question is, will the United States be a multi-­racial society that is run by a small white elite with a few individuals of African ancestry with negligible power? Or will African descendant elites feel no solidarity with other people of African ancestry at the bottom of society? At this time people of African ancestry remain disproportionately at the bottom of both societies. The majority evidence points to the fact that people of

102   Conclusion African ancestry will not succeed without significant redistribution programs such as baby bonds, guaranteed income, job programs, or some joint plan of reparations. In other words, the quest for racial equality in the African diaspora, specifically in Brazil and the United States, still has not resolved racial inequality. In both cases people of African ancestry have been agents in their quest for freedom and have made enormous strides toward ending racial inequality, but alas much work remains to be done. Indeed movements like Black Lives Matter have become international movements and people of African ancestry, because of the internet and social media, with all of its problems and contradictions, have become more interconnected than ever. Transnational solidarity has become more crucial than ever particularly as a medium of spreading ideas and ways in which to fight and resist racial repression. Finally, these ways in which to fight racial repression take on a variety of struggles that are often contradictory. Nevertheless, because of these struggles people of African ancestry have made social gains in Brazil. In other words, without Afro-­Brazilian agency, social progress would not exist, and the main reason Brazil has become less racist at all is because of the struggle of people of African ancestry as agents in their history. Moreover, this struggle has been ongoing since people of African ancestry arrived in what is today Brazil. It is in this spirit that this book has documented significant moments of black agency in Brazil and some of the strategies people of African ancestry have used to fight racism in Brazil.

Notes 1 Thomas E. Skidmore, “Bi-­Racial USA vs. Multi-­Racial Brazil: Is the Contrast Still Valid?” Journal of Latin Amer­ican Studies 25, no. 2 (1993): 373–386. 2 For discussions of how the election of Barack Obama helped sustain color-­blind racism see Eduardo Bonilla-­Silva and David Dietrich, “The Sweet Enchantment of Color-­ Blind Racism in Obamerica,” The Annals of the Amer­ican Academy of Political and Social Science 634 (2011): 190–206. 3 For a critical assessment of Donald Trump and Amer­ican “race relations” see Ta-­ Nehisi Coates, “The First White President,” The Atlantic, May 22, 2018, accessed January 29, 2019, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-­first-white-­ president-ta-­nehisi-coates/537909/. 4 Howard Winant, The World Is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy since World War II (New York: Basic Books, 2001). 5 For productive discussions of affirmative action see Patricia de Santana Pinho, Mama Africa: Reinventing Blackness in Bahia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 25–28. Also see Vânia Penha-­Lopes, Confronting Affirmative Action in Brazil: Univer­ sity Quota Students and the Quest for Racial Justice (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017). She gives a critical perspective but shows the overall importance of affirmative action in Brazil.

Index

Abbott, Robert 48–9 abolition movement 6, 9, 14–15, 18, 23 abolition of land monopoly 27 abstract liberalism 3, 5 affirmative action programs 89, 96 Afonso Arinos Law 58 Africa/African: Brazilian trade mission to 68; creolization 82; culture 12, 15; decolonization movement of 64; history 40 African ancestry 5, 11, 40, 50–1, 68, 84, 91, 94–5, 101–2; in Brazil 2, 10, 90; in colleges 95; functional system 2; in Latin America 10; socio-economic life chances of 1–2 African heritage 13, 62, 100–1; with slavery 82 Africanity, notions of 77 Afro-American Poetry 63 Afro-Brazilian community 9, 13, 44–5, 60, 62, 92 Afro-Brazilian Community Day 67 Afro-Brazilian culture 12–13 Afro-Brazilian rhythms 77 Afro-Brazilian uplift 9–12; Afro-diasporic upliftment 23–8; blackness 18–23; conservative 13–14; Gama, Luiz 15–18; outlaw culture 12–13; reformer 14–15 Afrocentric ideology 82–3 Afrocentric movement 82 Afro-descended elites 36 Afro-diasporic approaches 5 Afro-diasporic community 84–5 Afro-diasporic identity 34, 64, 72, 82 Afro-diasporic relationship 6 Afro-diasporic solidarity 63 Alexander, Michelle 1 Aliança Renovadora Nacional (ARENA) 68

Andrews, George Reid 46 Angolan-derived capoeira 71 Anti-African discrimination 61 anti-black racism 23, 100 ARENA see Aliança Renovadora Nacional (ARENA) Argolo, Nilo 59–60 artists 74 Asante, Molefi 81–2 Bahia 12–15, 20, 28, 35, 38 bands 74; American 77 Bastide, Roger 63–4 bipartisanship 68, 87 black art 57; culture and rise of TEN 59–60; theatre 60–4; Vargas nationalization project 57–9 black/blackness 1, 23, 36, 70, 76, 82; community 45, 58, 64, 69, 81–2, 101–2; development, conscious sense of 69; economic opportunity 7; governors 86–7; internationalism 57; leadership 10, 67; movements 62, 81; music 77; musical and political awareness about 73; musical styles 78; politicians 90; race 40; symbols of 73, 100; theatre, development of 57; valorization of 75 black culture 41, 59–60; “subversive” aspects of 70, 94 Black Lives Matter 102 black movement 7, 89–90, 93–4, 96; in Brazil 90; ideas of 101; women’s role in 93 black politics 81; Benedita da Silva 95–6; conservative tradition 89–90; from Gonzalez to Benedita da Silva 90–4; PDT 81–6; political resurgence of 81; Quilombismo and institutional politics 86–9; symbolism of 89

104   Index Black, Silvia 76 Black Skin, White Mask (Fanon) 10 black social clubs 41–4 black solidarity 49 black soul 72; movement 94; music 70, 76; proponent of 94 blatant racism 43 Bocksay, Stephen 70 Bolsa Familia program 95–6 Bolsonaro, Jair 96 Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo 5, 15, 85 Brasiliera, Frente Negra 6, 41 Brazil 2–3, 33–4; African ancestry in 2, 90; background of First Republic 34–7; black agency in 102; black movement in 7, 89–90, 93; black social clubs 41–4; color-blind racism in 6; democratization of 27; intellectual contribution to 26–7; Manuel Querino 38–41; multi-racial 99; music and culture 101; National Black Front (FNB) 44–7; political parties in 7; popular culture of 70; population of African descent 4–5; racial democracy 58–9; racial differences in 99; racial inequality in 3; racism in 57, 89, 102; racist oppression in 5; radical politics in 81; transnational perspective 47–51 Brazilian culture 70 Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) 67–9, 86; “moderate” faction of 68; regional and national directorates 68 Brazilian identity 76; formation of 58 Brazilian national project 64 Brazilian popular culture 70–1 Brazilian popular music 74 Brazilian society, development of 58 Brazil-Nigeria Chamber of Commerce and Industry 68 Brizola, Leonel 88 Brown, James 74 Calmon, Jorge 39 Camargo, Adalberto 67, 69, 89 Canabarro, Neuza 88 capitalism 70, 84, 101; critical analysis of 84 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique 96, 99 Carlos, José 5 Carmargo, Adalberto 101–2 Carson, W.E. 36 Centros Integrados de Educaçao Pública (CIEP) 88 CIEP see Centros Integrados de Educaçao Pública (CIEP)

civil rights movements 92, 94, 100–1 Civil War 11 class 1–2, 4, 10–11, 13, 20, 25, 27, 33–5, 38, 44–8, 58–9, 65, 72, 76, 79, 90–6 classical liberalism 3 Cliff, Jimmy 75 Clinton, George 78 Collares, Alceu de Deus 87–9 color-blind racism 1–2, 5–6, 34, 57, 85, 99; in Brazil 6; consequences of 5; dominant frames of 3; form of 2, 37; ideology of 5 color-blind society 2 colorism 10–11 commercial sources 72 community living, articulation of 72 consumerism 70, 101 contemporary quilombo 75 Cuba, black literary movement in 62 cultural appropriation 94 da Silva, Benedita 92, 95–6 da Silva, Lula 99 de Assis, Machado 4 de Azeredo, Albuíno Ferreira 87, 89 de Castro, Apulco 19–20 decolonization in Africa 64, 70, 94 Degler, Carl 11, 13 de jure racism 43 democracy 14–15 Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) 86 dictatorship: in Brazil 99; framework of 67; military 67, 100; Vargas 60 discrimination 3, 25, 33, 69; forms of 41–2; process of 91; racial 93 D’Souza, Dinesh 2 Du Bois, W.E.B. 22, 25, 40, 47–8 Dumas, Alexandre 63 Dunham, Katherine 58 economic security 84 electoral politics 89 Enlightenment, progressive principles of 3 Espinheira, Gonçalo 39 ethnic groups 12–13 Euro-assimilation 59 Eurocentric education 91 European immigration 34–5 Evieri, Hugo D. 61 ex-slaves 3 Fanon, Frantz 10 First Brazil-Africa Trade Symposium 68 fluidity 13, 58

Index   105 FNB see Frente Negra Brasiliera (FNB) fraternization 27 freedom of speech 101–2 Frente Negra Brasiliera (FNB) 34, 81, 93; legitimacy and popularity 45; middleclass movement 45 Freyre, Gilberto 58, 75 funk music 75, 78 Gama, Luiz 15–19, 23 Garvey movement 50 gender 93 Gil, Gilberto 71 Gledhill, Sabrina 40 Gonzalez, Leila 67, 91, 93–5 governor 68, 86–9, 95 Grosso, Mato 21 Hall, Stuart 10 Harlem Renaissance movement 62, 85 Hispanics 1, 32 historical movement 3, 15 Holy Orchid Brotherhood 60 humanity 22–3, 65 human oppression 100 human rights 38, 49; violations of 81 identity 13–14, 18, 20, 24, 26, 33–4, 63, 70–3, 75–8, 82, 84 imperialism, cultural forms of 70 industrialism 81 jazz 78 Jim Crow-style racism 85 job market 100 Karenga, Maulana 81–2 King, Gerson 74 KKK see Ku Klux Klan (KKK) Ku Klux Klan (KKK) 63 Labor Democratic Party (PDT) 87 landowners 28 land rights 85 Latin America 2–3; African ancestry in 10; Spanish colonies in 9 Lawrence, Dennis 51 liberalism 3, 5, 14–15, 23, 25 Liga Operária Baiana 38 literacy 11, 28, 36, 45–6, 61 Maia, Tim 73, 75 Maluf, Paulo 89 Marley, Bob 75

Marshal Program 2 Martin, George 71 mass communication 70–1, 94 master class 1, 18, 21 Mauro, Max 86 MDB see Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) Metello, José Maria 21 Mexico 9 military government 92 modernity 3–4, 15 monopoly capitalism 81 Moreira, De 36 Moses, Wilson J. 82 Motta, Ed 75 Movimento Negro France 63–4 mulatto escape 35 multi-racial society 101 music 70, 74; black/blackness 77; black soul 70, 76; soul 71 musical styles 72 NAACP see National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Nabuco, Joaquim 4 Nascimento, Abdias do 60, 64, 67, 77, 81, 88–9; Afro-diasporic community 84–5; Brazil, Mixture or Massacre: Essays in the Genocide of a Black People 85; Quilombo 85–6; works of 62 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 5, 45 National Black Front (FNB) 44–7 national identity 76 Nazareth, Carlos Mango 86 Negritude movement in France 62–4, 85 negro 10, 22, 25, 33, 36–7, 43–50, 58–9, 62–3, 69, 74, 84 Newton Duarte’s radio program 73 Obama, Barack 99 O’Neill, Eugene 60; Emperor Jones 62 Operária Baiana 38 outlaw culture 12–13 Palmares 12, 83–5 Palmer, Colin 78, 82–3 Palmer, Robert 77 Pan-Africanism 82 Pan-African movement 64 Paraguayan War 23 Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT) 7, 64, 87–8

106   Index Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) 7 Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB) 87 Partido Trabalho (PT) 81 Patrocínio, José do 18–23 PDS see Social Democratic Party (PDS) PDT see Labor Democratic Party (PDT); Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT) Pedro, Dom 25 personal liberty 27 Pires, Waldir 87 Pitta, Celso 89–90 PMDB see Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) political activism 58 political leadership 68–9 popular culture 70, 72, 94 popular music, Brazilian 74 Portugal 9 post-civil rights 1–2 postmodern identity 72 post-slavery protest movements 34 Powell, Adam Clayton 49–51 pro-slavery 21 psychoanalysis 91 PT see Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT); Partido Trabalho (PT) PTB see Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB) public schools 96, 101 Pushkin, Alexander 63 Queen Isabella 21–2 Querino, Manuel 6, 34, 38–41 Quilombismo 57, 82–6 quilombos 12, 18, 101 quotas 90, 95–6 race 21, 24, 33; see also racism racial democracy 57, 62, 89, 94, 100–1; discourse of 91; narrative of 100–1; rhetoric of 59 racial democracy thesis 58 racial discrimination 9, 33, 37, 58, 92–3 racial equality 102 racial exclusion 3, 15 racial harmony 100 racial hierarchies 10 racial identity 4 racial inequality 99, 101 racial miscegenation 58 racial pigmentocracy 43 racial slavery 4, 6; see also slavery racial solidarity 41 racism 1, 3, 33, 49, 57–8, 60, 67–9, 72, 89,

91, 94–6, 102; Afro-diasporic music in Brazil 70–8; black struggle against 94; effects of 59; frameworks 2; in Sao Paulo 47; strategies to 5; system of 14; viciousness of 21 radicalism 41 Ramos, Raimundo Nina 34 rap music 78 Rebouças, André 3, 23–8 religious freedom 27 Ribeiro, Theodosina 69 Rio de Janeiro 81; black soul movement in 78 Rodrigues, Nina Raimundo 41 Roussef, Dilma 95 rural democracy 26–7 Salvador, historic neighborhood in 76 Sao Luis 75–6 Sao Paulo 41, 68, 81; racism in 47 schools 96 Schuyler, George 63 self-determination 7 sexuality 93 Skidmore, Thomas 99 skin color 14 slave/slavery 9, 11, 20–3, 25, 33, 41, 82; abolition of 3, 36; African heritage with 82; class 1; conditions of 34; fight against 4, 18–19; gradual abolition of 25; horrors of 4; racial 6; resistance 12 Soares, Jair 88 Social Democratic Party (PDS) 68 social inequality 33, 89, 95 social interaction, racial fluidity in 58–9 social mobility 43 social movements 42, 95 society 69; beneficial changes in 39; Brazilian 58; color-blind 2; multi-racial 101 socio-economic inequality 33 solidarity 6, 9, 16, 26, 33, 41–5, 48, 63, 70, 73, 91, 102 soul music 7, 70–2, 76–7, 94 Stone, Sly 74, 94 structural racism 1, 85 “superior” classes 13 suplente 93 symbolism 90; of black politics 89 Teatro Experimental Negra (TEN) 6, 57, 64, 81, 93; domestic workers 85–6; experiment 62; intellectual mouthpiece 57; rise of 59–60

Index   107 Telles, Edward 3 TEN see Teatro Experimental Negra (TEN) theatre 62 Tiete Yacht Club 92 transnational solidarity 102 Tropicália movement 71, 94 Unified Black Movement (MNU) 92 Unified Black Movement Against Racial Discrimination (MNUCDR) 92 United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 3 United States (US) 1; bi-racial 99; black youth in 71; civil rights 1, 99; history of colorism 11; population of 1; post-civil rights 1–2; racial democracy 99; racial oppression 99 utopian community 83

Vargas, Getulio 44, 46–7 Vargas nationalization project 57–9 Veloso, Caetano 71 Viana, Francisco Oliveira 34, 41 violence 24 Wacquant, Loic 1 Washington, Booker T. 25–7, 40 whitening 23, 41, 59–60 white supremacy 34 Wilson, William Julius 2 Workers Party (PT) 90 working-class people 39 youth culture 71 youth movement 71, 94 Zulu, Chaka 10