Enciclopédia Negra is a new encyclopedia of Black Brazilian personalities written by Flávio Gomes, Jaime Lauriano and Lilia Moritz Schwarz. The book, however, isn't full of Black people who took up arms, published books or created laws (though there are a few of those in there). The book is unique in that it includes 417 profiles of "regular” Black people who resisted against racism and slavery in previously unknown ways. Among them is Agostinho Pereira, called “Lutero Negro” by an English naturalist, who gathered hundreds of followers preaching for the political autonomy of blacks. A former military man and critic of the church, he said that Jesus was not white but “finished” long before the current computerized reconstructions prove him right. He was sentenced to three years in prison. The book also features figures such as Abdias do Nascimento, Dandara, Tereza de Benguela, Aqualtune, Marielle Franco, among figures during and post-slavery.
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To go along with these profiles, 36 Brazilian artists produced 36 portraits of those profiled. Many of the “unknown” did not have photos or portraits so the artists used creative freedom to represent them.
Before we dig into the rest of our articles, please don't forget to check out this Alafía Mundo event below on April 14!
Dr. Helena Theodoro and Dr. Sheila Walker are back together again and in this session Alafia Mundo welcomes the contributors of the Walker's book, "Knowledge from the Inside: Afro-South Americans Speak of their People and their Stories."
In this session, Afro-South Americans will talk about their people, culture and and tell their stories. We invite Juan Angola Maconde (Bolivia), Lucia Molina (Argentina), Marta Salgado Henríquez (Chile), Raul Platicon (Colombia), Fernanda Felisberto (Brazil), Jana Guinond ( Brazil), Kiratiana Freelon (Chicago / EUA / RJ) and Tainá Almeida (Brazil).
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Back to our regular schedule
For the first time in 17 years, Brazil has 116 million people with food insecurity, by Terra on April 7
For the first time in the last 17 years, 116 million people in Brazil have food insecurity. In other words, more than half of the country's population will not be sure if they will be able to buy enough food to put on the table the next day.
The precarious economic situation has caused hunger in many Brazilian families.More precisely, 116.8 million people, according to a survey published by the Brazilian Research Network on Sovereignty and Food and Nutrition Security (Rede Pensan), last Monday, 5.
You can check the complete survey with the data here.
Excavating the History of Afro-Brazilian Women, by Black Perspectives on April 5:
Only a few pages remain of what is cited as the first known text written by an Afro-Brazilian woman. Rosa Egipcíaca da Vera Cruz—an enslaved African-born woman—wrote Sacred Theology of the Love of the God of Light Shining in the Pilgrim Souls in the 1700s. In 1993, Luiz Mott published an extensive biography of Rosa after finding her in Portugal’s national archives.
Rosa was believed to have resided in what is now Lagos, Nigeria, born to the Koura or Courana nation. Enslaved as a child, she was transported across the Atlantic and arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1725 at six years of age. She was purchased, baptized, and sexually exploited by her male owner and then sold again at fourteen to a family residing in a parish just outside of Mariana, Minas Gerais.
João Alberto's widow refuses compensation offered by Carrefour, by Alma Preta on April 3:
João Alberto Freitas was a black Brazilian who was beaten and murdered by asphyxiation last year by security guards at one of the chains at the Carrefour supermarket on the eve of Black Awareness Day in Brazil, November 20.
The amount offered of R$ 1 million was the same amount paid by the multinational company in the case of a dog that was killed in 2019 at a store in Osasoco.
Milena Borges Alves, widow of João Alberto Freitas, a black man murdered by security guards at the Carrefour hypermarket in Porto Alegre last year, refused the compensation offer offered by the company. The amount proposed in the agreement was R $ 1 million, according to Milena's lawyer, Carlos Barata.
In a period of two weeks, three well-known Afro-Brazilian entertainers die from Covid-19 by Black Brazil Today on April 5
It’s been a while since I’ve done any reporting on how Covid-19 is affecting Brazil because, for me, the news has simply been too depressing. President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the crisis has been an absolute failure and it seems that every time I hear new about the situation, there’s been another report of record-setting deaths from the virus in a 24-hour period. Over the past year, we’ve also seen a number of celebrity victims of the pandemic. Recently, in a period of two weeks, March 21st to April 3rd, three well-known Afro-Brazilians passed away. Actor Edson Montenegro dies of Covid-19 in São Paulo, singer Agnaldo Timóteo, 84, dies of covid-19 in Rio. Actor João Acaiabe died of Covid in São Paulo.
Population Below the Poverty Line Triples and Reaches 27 million Brazilians, by CNN Brasil on April 8:
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the number of citizens living below the poverty line has tripled, reaching about 27 million people, 12.8% of the Brazilian population. The survey carried out by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) also points out that many families try to survive with the value of R $ 246.00 (US $ 43.95) per month.
Researchers affirm that the high levels of unemployment and the absence of public policies have made access to income difficult, leading to the worst scenario of poverty in Brazil, in the last ten years. According to data from the Federation of Industries of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Firjan), the state of Rio de Janeiro alone accumulated more than one million layoffs in formal jobs from March 2020 to February 2021.
Interview: Lawyer Deepens Debate on Colorism in New Book, by O Globo on March 20:
Alessandra Devulsky has published a book on colorism through the “Plural Feminisms” collection, coordinated by the philosopher Djamila Ribeiro. This collection has taken Brazil by storm!
Culture
Dona Ivone Lara Was transformative Without Being An Activist, according biography, by Folha de São Paulo on March 30:
Dona Ivone Lara is a legendary samba singer and composer, who didn't fully dedicate herself to her career until she retired as a psychiatric nurse in 1977 at the age of 55. She passed away in 2018 and in 2019 Mila Burns published her biography - “Dona Ivone Lara – Sorriso Negro.” The book was just published in Portuguese and Folha de São Paulo wrote a review of it.
Here's a video of her singing her famous song - "Sorriso Negro"
Black Lives Matter Inspires Choreography With Black Brazilian Dancers from Joburg Ballet, by Negrê on April 7:
Inspiration. It is through this path that the conception of an artistic and creative process begins. Neoclassical choreography We Pray (Nós Oramos) was inspired by the Black Lives Matter, movement nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2021. The performance was choreographed by the Brazilian dancer and co-founder of Blacks in Ballet (BIB), Ruan Galdino, and performed by the dancers, the Cuban Cláudia Monja and the Brazilian Gabriel Fernandes – all from the Professional Ballet Company Joburg Ballet –, from Johannesburg (South Africa).
The choreography was part of a set of performances – choreographed by professional dancers from Joburg Ballet – and presented between the 20th and 21st of March - the date that marks the International Day Against Racial Discrimination.
Only Black woman in Japanese University: "Poor People Can Also Study Abroad too", by Universa on April 3:
Marina de Melo do Nascimento's achievement of graduating from a Japanese university went viral on twitter earlier this month.
"From Itaquera to the current number one university in Japan!". It was with this caption in a Twitter post that Marina de Melo do Nascimento, 29, saw her graduation from the Masters in History at the University of Tohoku, one of the most respected in the eastern country, reverberating on social networks in recent days.
The only black student in the Humanities area at the Japanese educational institution, Marina wrote a dissertation, in English, about Kishida Toshiko (1863 - 1901), one of the first Japanese feminists, and her writings in women's magazines at a time when patriarchal rules in the eastern country were much more stringent.
Opinion
Opinion: My hair is my CROWN. Respect him, by Mundo Negro on April 6:
That agenda isn’t today. This pain is not of today. These nasty comments are not of today that hurt our soul, our self-esteem, our feeling and our being. It starts there in the mother's belly with the comments: "I hope you have good hair"; "will it have hair "pixaim "? ...
Opinion: Trust is a privilege, by Negrê on April 1:
The natural instinct to trust others and the ingrained need to believe and collaborate with others had to be crushed within me. As an Afro-Brazilian, I’m the side effect of a war against Afro-descendants that has been devastating Brazil since the arrival of the first slave ship in 1539. First with gunpowder and weapons, and now with Neoliberalism and Necropolitics on a large scale.
According to the dictionary, genocide is the deliberate murder of many people in a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of exterminating or subjugating that same group. Brazil began a process of semi-official eugenics since 1888, shortly after the abolition of the last world slavery.