The Afterlive[s] of Marielle Franco…Black Womxn’s Resistance in Brazil

Data shows that, one (1) in five (5) of Rio de Janerio’s inhabitants reside in one of its more than 1,000 favelas. It is in these spaces where inequality and human potential is molded, identity is created, resistance is formulated. After the abolition of slavery in 1888, favelas began to rapidly appear. Majority moved to urban areas to take part in and create informal economies, primarily due to official policies between former plantation owners and government officials who prioritized immigration of European migrants. It is within this abbreviated history that we locate Marielle Franco, a black queer woman, mother, sociologist, socialist, human rights defender, councilwoman from the favela of Maré who was assassinated March 14, 2018. Marielle was born & raised in one of Rio’s favelas and was murdered representing her and other communities like it. Of the many continuities that we can identify with the assassination of Marielle Franco & the efforts she fought to expose, extrapolating them to conditions and experiences around the African world, we must not forget that Marielle Franco was a part of a long tradition of freedom fighters... In the statement, On the Imperative of Transnational Solidarity: A U.S. Black Feminist Statement on the Assassination of Marielle Franco, Professors Kia L. Caldwell, Wendi Muse, Tianna S. Paschel, Erica L. Williams, Christen A. Smith, and our very own Keisha-Khan Y. Perry, writes that: “it is important to recognize that Black Brazilians have also been speaking out and organizing against anti-black police lethality and brutality for generations. Black resistance can be traced back as far as the wars between slavery-era quilombos (maroon communities) and Portuguese military forces”. Today, in the tradition of holding up those who contribute to freedom, in recognition of the afterlives of Marielle Franco, we explore Afro and Indigenous Womxn’s Radical Resistance in Brazil with Joênia Wapixana of the REDE party and Congresswoman for the state of Roraima in the Amazon region, and first indigenous woman ever elected to the Brazilian Congress; and Sara Alves Branco, a black Brazilian human rights lawyer advocating for the promotion of racial and gender equality, as well as legal adviser and project assistant at the black Brazilian organization Center of Studies of Labor Relations and Inequalities (CEERT). Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Sources: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/life-and-battles-marielle-franco/; https://www.leftvoice.org/tag/marielle-franco;https://www.kzoo.edu/praxis/the-life-marielle-franco/; https://nacla.org/news/2020/03/10/mariellepresente-reading-list-marielle-franco; https://newint.org/features/2020/01/24/museum-working-class; https://www.theblackscholar.org/on-the-imperative-of-transnational-solidarity-a-u-s-black-feminist-statement-on-the-assassination-of-marielle-franco/; https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2010/may/17/five-days-favela-complexo-mare; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3BRTlHFpBU; https://www.leftvoice.org/tag/marielle-franco; https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10714839.2017.1298243; https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/04/killings-brazilian-police-human-rights-crisis-un-review; https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/JoeniaWapixana.aspx; https://library.brown.edu/create/fivecenturiesofchange/chapters/chapter-4/abolition/; https://psol50.org.br/