Brazil gears up to celebrate Black consciousness

By Karen Juanita Carrillo

More than half of the citizens of São Paulo, Brazil celebrate November 20th as “National Black Consciousness Day (Dia da Consciência Negra),” the editors of the Brazilian website Afropress.com have declared .

In Salvador da Bahia, where the entire month is being celebrated as “Black November,” 80 thousand people are expected to take part in a “Freedom Walk” on Tuesday, November 20th. But in São Paulo - which is both Brazil's most populous city and the city with the largest population of people of African descent outside of Africa - preparations are underway for what’s expected to be a major march along the Avenida Paulista, it is being called the Marcha da Consciência Negra/Black Consciousness March or Parada Negra/Black Parade. Contingents from various other cities are on their way to São Paulo to take part in the parade. 

Government-sponsored recognitions will also take place. Radiobrás, the national radio agency, is planning a week of special programs on the subject of racism in Brazil and it will look at efforts to promote racial equality. The Brazilian Federation of Banks (FEBRABAN) has noted that the holiday is already so well recognized that banks in the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, Marabá and Vilhena will all be closed on Tuesday, November 20 as each of those cities recognize the day as a bank holiday.

Established under law number 10.639 in 2003, the Dia da Consciência Negra recalls the life of Zumbi who, on November 20, 1695, was betrayed by a follower, captured by Brazil’s Portuguese soldiers and beheaded. Zumbi was a leader of the quilombo of Palmares – a community of self-liberated Afro Brazilians who had fled from the sugar plantations in Pernambuco.  Brazil’s Black movement has used the image of Zumbi as a symbol to promote the idea of resistance and independence for its community.

Afro Brazilian Senator Paulo Paim, who is also chair of the nation’s Commission on Human Rights, has proposed legislation to make the Dia da Consciência Negra a national holiday.  Sen. Paim is collecting signatures on an online petition for those who support a Statute of Racial Equality that would enforce a Brazil without racism.

Senator Paulo Paim

The marches, petitions, parades and celebrations this year will merely foreshadow events due to take place next year, when Afro Brazilians commemorate 2008 as the 120th anniversary of the abolition of African slavery in their country.