Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:36:22.316Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Du Bois and Brazil

Reflections on Black Transnationalism and African Diaspora

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2021

Juliana Góes
Juliana Góes*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, MA, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: jgoes@umass.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, I discuss Black transnational solidarity and liberation in the Americas by analyzing the historical relationship between W. E. B. Du Bois and Brazil from 1900 to 1940. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Du Bois was studying, writing, and publishing about Brazil. He was interested in creating international solidarity and cooperation among Black people. However, Du Bois (as well as other African Americans) promoted the idea that Brazil was a place without racism, a racial paradise. This idea served as a basis for a theory that oppressed Afro-Brazilians—the myth of racial democracy. In this article, I explore Du Bois’s relationship with Brazil, highlighting possible reasons why Du Bois engaged with the myth of racial democracy. In addition, I argue that this historical event teaches us that an Afro-diasporic liberation project must seriously consider global and material inequalities among Black people.

Keywords

Du BoisBlack TransnationalismAfrican DiasporaBrazilBlack Liberation
Type
State of the Art
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , Fall 2022 , pp. 293 - 308
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hutchins Center for African and African American Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alberto, Paulina (2011). Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Brazil. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alencastro, Luiz Felipe de (1985). Geopolítica da Mestiçagem. Novos Estudos, 11: 49–64.Google Scholar
Campos, Luiz Augusto (2015). “O Negro é Povo no Brasil”: Afirmação da Negritude e Democracia Racial em Alberto Guerreiro Ramos (1948-1955). Caderno CRH, 28: 91–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campt, Tina, and Thomas, Deborah A. (2008). Gendering Diaspora: Transnational Feminism, Diaspora and its Hegemonies. Feminist Review, 90(10): 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carneiro, Sueli (2011). Racismo, Sexismo e Desigualdade no Brasil. São Paulo, Brazil: Selo Negro.Google Scholar
Cerqueira, Daniel, Bueno, Samira, Alves, Paloma, Lima, Renato, Silva, Enid, Ferreira, Helder, Pimentel, Amanda, Barros, Betina, Marques, David, Pacheco, Dannis, Lins, Gabriel, Lino, Igor, Sobral, Isabela, Figueiredo, Isabel, Martins, Juliana, Armstrong, Karolina, and Figueiredo, Taís (2020). Atlas da Violência. Brasília, Brazil: IPEA.Google Scholar
Consorte, Josidelth Gomes (1999). A Mestiçagem no Brasil: Armadilhas e Impasses. Revista Margem, 10: 107–117.Google Scholar
Costa, Sérgio (2001). A Mestiçagem e seus Contrários: Etnicidade e Nacionalidade no Brasil Contemporâneo. Tempo Social, 13(1): 143–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Domingues, Petrônio (2005). O Mito da Democracia Racial e a Mestiçagem no Brasil (1889-1930). Diálogos Latinoamericanos, 10: 117–131.Google Scholar
Domingues, Petrônio (2007). Movimento Negro Brasileiro: Alguns Apontamentos Históricos. Tempo, 12(23): 100–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Domingues, Petrônio (2013). Como se Fosse Bumerangue: Frente Negra Brasileira no Circuito Transatlântico. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, 28(81): 155–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1903). The Talented Tenth. New York: James Pott and Company.Google Scholar
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1914). Brazil. The Crisis, April, 286–287.Google Scholar
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1915). The Negro. New York: Henry Holt and Company.Google Scholar
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1916). Baltimore Afro-American, January 15.Google Scholar
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1936). Miscegenation. Unpublished Manuscript, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1947). The Pan-African Movement. In Padmore, George (Ed.), Colonial and Coloured Unity: A Programme of Action/ History of the Pan-African Congress, pp. 13–26. London: The Hammersmith Bookshop LTD.Google Scholar
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt ([1897] 2014). The Conservation of Races. In Chandler, Nahum Dimitri (Ed.), The Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, pp. 51–66. New York: Fordham University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt ([1952] 2014). In Battle for Peace: The Story of My 83rd Birthday. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, Brent Hayes (2001). The Uses of Diaspora. Social Text, 19(1): 45–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Escóssia, Fernanda da (2016). A Cada 23 Minutos, Um Jovem Negro é Assassinado no Brasil, diz CPI. BBC News, June 6. https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-36461295 (accessed July 31, 2021).Google Scholar
Francisco, Flávio Thales Ribeiro (2010). Fronteiras em Definição: Identidades Negras e Imagens dos Estados Unidos e da África no Jornal “O Clarim da Alvorada” (1924-1932). Masters Thesis, Department of History, University of São Paulo.Google Scholar
Francisco, Flávio Thales Ribeiro (2014). O Novo Negro em Perspectiva Transnacional. Representações Afro-Americanas sobre o Brasil e a França no jornal Chicago Defender (1916-1940). PhD Dissertation, Department of History, University of São Paulo.Google Scholar
Freyre, Gilberto (2003 [1933]). Casa-Grande e Senzala: A Formação da Família Brasileira sob o Regime da Economia Patriarcal. São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Global.Google Scholar
Freyre, Gilberto (2013 [1936]). Sobrados e Mucambos: Decadência do Patriarcado Rural e Desenvovlimento do Urbano. São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Global.Google Scholar
Gonzalez, Lélia (1984). Racismo e Sexismo na Cultura Brasileira. Revista Ciências Sociais Hoje, 2(1): 223–244.Google Scholar
Gooding-Williams, Robert (2009). In the Shadow of Du Bois: Afro-Modern Political Thought in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctvjhzqcr.Google Scholar
Guimarães, Antonio (2004). Intelectuais Negros e Formas de Integração Nacional. Estudos Avançados, 18(50): 271–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guimarães, Antonio (2008). Africanism and Racial Democracy: The Correspondence Between Herskovits and Arthur Ramos (1935-1949). EIAL: Estudios Interdisciplinarios de America Latina y el Caribe, 19(1): 53–79.Google Scholar
Guimarães, Antonio (2019). A Democracia Racial Revisitada. Afro-Ásia, 60: 9–44.Google Scholar
Hanchard, Michael (1994). Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, 1945-1988. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hellwig, David J. (1990). Racial Paradise or Run-Around?: Afro-North American Views of Race Relations in Brazil. American Studies, 31(2): 43–60.Google Scholar
Hooker, Juliet (2017). Theorizing Race in the Americas: Douglass, Sarmineto, Du Bois, and Vasconcelos. London: Oxford Scholarship.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) (2019). Desigualdes Sociais por Cor ou Raça no Brasil. Estudos e Pesquisas: Informação Demográfica e Socioecônomica, 41:1– 12.Google Scholar
IBGE (2020). Características Gerais dos Domícilios e dos Moradores 2019. Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios Contínua. https://biblioteca.ibge.gov.br/visualizacao/livros/liv101707_informativo.pdf (acessed July 31, 2021).Google Scholar
Kelley, Robin (2000). How the West Was One: On the Uses and Limitations of Diaspora. The Black Scholar, 30(3/4): 31–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lacerda, João (1911). The Metis, or Half-Breeds, of Brazil. In Spiller, G. (Ed.) Papers on Inter-Racial Problems Communicated to the First Universal Races Congress Held at the University of London , July 26-29, 1911, pp. 377–382. London: P. S. King & Son.Google Scholar
Lao-Montes, Agustin (2007). Decolonial Moves: Trans-locating African Diaspora Spaces. Cultural Studies, 21(2): 309–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machado, Carlos Eduardo Dias (2009). População Negra e Escolarização na Cidade de São Paulo nas Décadas de 1920 e 1930. PhD Dissertation, Department of History, University of São Paulo.Google Scholar
Meade, Teresa, and Pirio, Gregory Alonso (1988). In Search of the Afro-American “Eldorado”: Attempts by North American Blacks to Enter Brazil in the 1920s. Luso-Brazilian Review, 25(1): 85–110.Google Scholar
Munanga, Kabengele (1999). Rediscutindo a Mestiçagem no Brasil: Identidade Nacional versus Identidade Negra. Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro: Editora Vozes.Google Scholar
Nascimento, Abdias (1978). O Genocídio do Negro Nrasileiro: Processo de um Racismo Mascarado. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Editora Paz e Terra.Google Scholar
Nunes, Zita (2008). Cannibal Democracy: Race and Representation in the Literature of the Americas. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Oliveira, Amurabi (2019). Afro-Brazilian Studies in the 1930s: Intellectual Networks Between Brazil and the U.S. Brasiliana : Journal for Brazilian Studies, 8(1-2): 32–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paschel, Tiana S. (2016). Becoming Black Political Subjects. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, Tiffany, and Kelley, Robin (2000). Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World. African Studies Review, 43(1): 11–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pereira, Amilcar Araújo (2013). O Mundo Negro: Relações Raciais e a Constituição do Movimento Negro Compoterâneo no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Pallas Editora.Google Scholar
Pinto, Ana Flávia Magalhães (2018). Escritos de Liberdade: Literatos Negros, Racismo e Cidadania no Brasil Oitocentista. Campinas, Brazil: Editora Unicamp.Google Scholar
Ramos, Arthur (1934). O Negro Brasileiro. São Paulo, Brazil: Civilização brasileira.Google Scholar
Reis, Ruan Levy Andrade (2017). Letras de Fogo, Barreiras de Lenha: a Produção Intelectual Negra Paulista em Movimento (1915-1931). PhD Dissertation, Department of History, University of São Paulo.Google Scholar
Rocha, Vera da Silva (2010). Mesticagem na Bahia: Um Estudo sobre a Construção da Identidade na Cidade de Salvador. Master’s Theses, Multidisciplinary Graduate Program in Ethnic and African Studies, Federal University of Bahia.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, Theodore (1914). Brazil and the Negro. The Outlook, February 21, 409–411.Google Scholar
Sansone, Livio (2011). USA and Brazil in Gantois: Power and the Transnational Origin of Afro-Brazilian Studies. Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology, 8: 536–567Google Scholar
Schwarcz, Lilia K. Mortiz (1993). O Espetáculo das Raças: Cientistas, Instituições e a Questão Racial no Brasil do século XIX. São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Companhia das Letras.Google Scholar
Schwarcz, Lilia K. Mortiz (1996). Usos e Abusos da Mestiçagem e da Raça no Brasil: Uma História das Teorias Racias em Finais do Século XIX. Afro-Ásia, 18: 77–101.Google Scholar
Seigel, Micol (2009). Uneven Encounters: Making Race and Nation in Brazil and the United States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silva, Graziella M., and Paixão, Marcelo (2014). Mixed and Unequal: New Perspectives on Brazilian Ethnoracial Relations. In Telles, Edward (Ed.), Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America ., pp. 172–217. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press Books.Google Scholar
Silva, Luiz (2007). E Disse o Velho Militante José Correira Leite. São Paulo, Brazil: Noovha America.Google Scholar
Souza, Neusa Santos ([1983] 1990). Tornar-se Negro. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Edições Graal.Google Scholar
Telles, Edward (2014). Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press Books.Google Scholar
Valdez, Inés (2019). Transnational Cosmopolitanism: Kant, Du Bois, and Justice as a Political Craft. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waiselfisz, Julio Jacobo (2015). Mapa da Violência 2015: Homícidios de Mulheres no Brasil. Brasília, Brazil: FLACSO.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B.. Papers Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar