The space of the exhibition Reaction Time – 100th birthday of goalkeeper Barbosa presents a summarized timeline of the main milestones of the black movement and the anti-racist struggle in Brazil and in the world. Here you have access to the complete survey:
1837 | First education law prohibits blacks from going to school
1850 | The Land Act stipulates that blacks cannot own property
1871 | Free Birth Law
End of the 19th century | Brazilian intellectual and political elite influenced by pseudoscientific theories of social Darwinism and eugenics; defense of European immigration policies
1885 | Sexagenarian Law
1888 | The Golden Law (formally) decrees the end of enslavement throughout Brazil, without providing for the right to own land. In all, there were 388 years of slavery regime legally supported by the state
1890 | The Loitering and Capoeira Law allows the arrest of people who wandered the streets without work or proven residence (what about freedom? What color were the people incarcerated at that time? Who still makes up the majority of the country’s prison population today?)
1903 | Publication of “The Souls of Black Folk” by W.E.B. Du Bois, which describes the experience of being an African-American in the United States
1910-1920 | Strengthening of the black press in Brazil
1910 | João Cândido, the Black Admiral, leads the Revolta da Esquadra or Revolta da Chibata, putting an end to the corporal punishment practiced against sailors
1911 | João Baptista de Lacerda, at the Universal Congress of Races, in London, defends miscegenation as a positive factor and the thesis of whitening the Brazilian population
1914 | The first union organization dedicated to the cause of black people appears in Campinas, with an expressive and determining role for black women
1915 | Foundation of the Menelick newspaper, the first periodic in São Paulo aimed at disseminating the black culture and defending the interests of the Afro-descendant population
1920s | Harlem Renaissance, movement that disseminated “black culture” in large European and US cities seeking to “exorcise” widespread stereotypes and prejudices against blacks in the social imaginary
1931 | Foundation of the Frente Negra Brasileira, an entity representing the desires and aspirations of the black population of the time. It played a role that the State did not take in relation to black people (school, health and social assistance). It had a remarkable political role.
1932 | The Social Culture Black Club was created in São Paulo
1933 | Publication of the book “The Masters and the Slaves”, by Gilberto Freyre, main intellectual mentor of the ideology of racial democracy in Brazil
1934 | Movement Négritude (France) that broke up with the cultural pattern imposed by the white colonization and brought identity, loyalty and solidarity among all the “brothers of color” of the black diaspora.
1934 | Earning the right to vote
1934-1937 | Antonieta de Barros, first black woman to assume a political mandate in the country (Santa Catarina)
1942 | Donald Pierson’s thesis and the foundation of race relations studies in Brazil
1944 | Abdias do Nascimento founded the Teatro Experimental do Negro, which opened up the Brazilian scenic arts to black actors and actresses, and represented a front of struggle and a cultural hub that aimed at the cultural liberation of black people
1945 | 1st National Convention of the Brazilian Black, which claimed that the new Constitution shouldmake explicit the ethnic origin of the Brazilian people, define racism as a crime against the countryand punish its practice as a crime, also demanding positive policies of racial equality (scholarships and tax incentives)
1948 | Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose 2nd article guarantees rights and freedoms established in the declaration to all without distinction of any kind
1949-1950 | Arthur Ramos and the UNESCO Project: the idea of Brazilian racial democracy internationally propagated: Brazil, racial paradise in the world?
1950 | 1st Congress of the Brazilian Black People insisted on the principle of racial equality policies and, being popular in nature, did not treat black people as “a simple object of research”
1951 | Afonso Arinos Law, the first anti-racist law in Brazil: acts resulting from racial or color prejudice constitute a criminal misdemeanor/establishes a year in prison or a fine
1954 | Brown vs. Board of Education: US Supreme Court case that declared racial segregation in public institutions in the country unconstitutional. The decision had little effectiveness and did not define how the desegregation would occur
1955 | Montgomery bus boycott: Rosa Parks (NAACP) refuses to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, is arrested and her action becomes the trigger for other boycotts, being a milestone in the anti-segregation struggle
1958 | ILO Convention 111: imposes on member countries the duty to enact laws to prevent discrimination based on color in regards of employment and occupation
1958 | French Constitution guarantees equality to all citizens, without distinction of origin, race or religion, as well as respect for all beliefs
1960 | Canada Bill of Rights: Prohibits discrimination based on race, nationality, color, religion or gender
1961 | First use of the term “affirmative action” when establishing the Commission for Equal Employment Opportunity in the United States. It was aimed at fighting the damage caused by the segregationist laws that were in force between 1896 and 1954
1963 | Washington March for Jobs and Freedom, with 250,000 people. Speech “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King
1964 | Civil Rights Act – United States: removed formal barriers to black citizenship, prohibited discrimination and made segregation of people by race, origin and religion illegal
1965 | Voting Rights Act (United States): put an end to discriminatory electoral practices by suspending literacy tests for blacks in southern states
1965 | Executive Order 11,246 Against Discrimination at Work (United States): Institutions with a government contract had to implement an affirmative action program to ensure that the persons employed were treated equally and without discrimination
1965 | 1st UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, one of the main international treaties in the field of Human Rights, reaffirmed the false scientific criteria of racial superiority doctrines, condemning them and indicating the criminalization of organizations and advertisements with that purpose. It also dealt with the construction of mechanisms for implementing affirmative action policies.
1965 | Interracial Relations Act (UK): prohibition of discrimination based on race or color and criminal typification of incitement to racial hatred
1967 | 1967 Referendum (Australia): grants citizenship to the entire indigenous population of the country
1967 | Loving vs. Virginia (United States): Supreme Court rules unconstitutional laws prohibiting interracial marriage
1968 | Interracial Relations Act (UK): makes it illegal to deny housing, employment or public services for racial reasons
1968 | Housing Act (United States): prohibits discrimination in the acts of selling, renting or financing real estate
1960-70 | Peak of the Black Power Movement, which preached racial pride and the creation of public and cultural institutions committed to the self-determination of Afro-descendant people
1966 | Foundation of the Black Panthers Party, which fought for the rights of the black population and for the self-defense of African-Americans, a political and symbolic reference in the anti-racist struggle and in the assertion of identity of blacks in the diaspora
1968 | Lei do Boi (Bull Law): first quota law in the country, but for children of landowners, who were accepted in technical schools and universities
1970s | Black Soul Movement is a hit in Brazil
1974 | Foundation of the Ilê Aiyê cultural block in Salvador and several movements of black culture and study in Brazil (Cecan, IBEA, IPCN, Federation of Afro-Brazilian Entities of the State of São Paulo, Week of the Negro in Art and Culture, Cultural Theater Movement Negro, Gran Quilombo Samba School, Brazil-Africa Exchange Society)
1977-78 | Creation of The Unified Black Movement (MNU), which, among many actions, institutes the National Day of Black Consciousness, November 20, in celebration of the memory of Zumbi dos Palmares
1979 | The item “color” is included in the IBGE census due to pressure from scholars and civil society organizations; Foundation of Olodum, a musical group that cultivates the continuity of African sociocultural values in Salvador
1980s | Brazilian black movement promotes the revaluation of Africa, the peak of the re-Africanization of Candomblé, rejection of religious syncretism
1988 | Creation of the Palmares Foundation, a public institution that promotes the appreciation of black culture in Brazil; Promulgation of the Federal Constitution, known as “The Citizens’ Constitution”, which guaranteed the remaining quilombo communities ownership of the lands occupied by them
1989 | Caó Law established racism as an unbailable and indefeasible crime in Brazil
1990s | Afro groups’ music and axé music hits show business and become mainstream
1991 | Creation of Conen (National Coordination of Black Entities), articulation of the new forces of the black movement
1992 | First quilombola community recognized in Brazil
1994 | End of Apartheid in South Africa. Nelson Mandela elected as the country’s first black president
1995 | Zumbi dos Palmares March and institution of the Interministerial Work Group for the Valorization of the Black Population
2001 | Durban conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance, in which Brazil recognized that it would have to make reparation policies and affirmative actions. This started the movement to implement racial quotas in public universities.
2003 | Creation of the Special Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality Policies of the Presidency of the Republic (SEPPIR) and Law 10.639 that established the teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African culture and history in the official curriculum of the educational network. UERJ (State University of Rio de Janeiro) is the first state university to adopt the system of quotas.
2004 | University of Brasília is the first federal public education institution to adopt the system of quotas.
2008 | Barack Obama is elected as the first black president in the United States
2010 | Approval of the Racial Equality Statute (Law No. 12,288), which provides for the establishment of public policies to correct racial imbalances and fight against discrimination and other forms of ethnic intolerance
2012 | After a decade of debates, the Brazilian Supreme Court declares the quota policy to be constitutional and they become Law (No. 12,711) infederal institutions. The measure determines that every public institutionof higher education reserve 50% of its places for students from public schools, among which there are percentages for self-declared “black”, “brown” (according to IBGE’s criteria), indigenous and people with disabilities.
2013 | Beginning of the Black Lives Matter Movement
2014 | Law No. 12,990 reserves 20% of places to black people in public tenders
2015 | International March Against Genocide of the Black People
