Printing Ideas: Intellectuals and Racial Mobilization in Post-War Brazil (1945-1955)

• Autor: Petrônio Domingues y Flávio Gomes
• Cargo: PhD in History from the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and professor at the Universidade Federal de Sergipe (UFS)/PhD in History from the Universidade de Campinas (UNICAMP)
• Páginas: 231-248

231

controVersias y concurrencias latinoamericanas

issn 2219-1631 Vol.6 no. 9 abril 2014

coedición: Journal of latin american communication research

ISSN: 2237-1265

PRINTING IDEAS:

INTELLECTUALS AND RACIAL MOBILIZATION

IN POSTWAR BRAZIL 194519551

1 This article is part of a larger research project on the intellectual history of post-Abolition Brazil nanced

by the National Research and Scientic-Technological Development Council (CNPq) and the Rio de Janeiro

State Foundation for Research (FAPERJ).

Petrônio Domingues

Flávio Gomes

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to analyze the publication Quilombo and the expectations

of intellectual sectors and integration projects in Brazil immediately after World War

II. We argue that this periodical – published by the Black Experimental Theater group

(Teatro Experimental do Negro; TEN) between 1948 and 1950 – became the main

voice for a democratic political movement with an anti-racist orientation, particularly

spearheaded by Black intellectuals with the support of other segments of Brazilian

society. This political movement – especially its news outlet – became an ideological

hub that sought to forge a new hegemony on the racial discourse of the time (HAN-

CHARD, 2001), but it is also true that it did not articulate one but many voices, multi-

ple discourses and a variety of ideologies. As Bastide has observed (1951:50), several

alternative publications represented the uplift of individuals in specic social seg-

ments, and it could be said that the creation of Quilombo also indicated a desire for

inclusion, participation and visibility for Black intellectuals in a given national plan.

And it is possible to suggest that certain trajectories and biographies of intellectuals,

political institutions and events have assisted with the analysis of narratives on race,

integration, citizenship and miscegenation.

Keywords: Afro-brazilian, race, black press, intellectuals, diaspora.

232 fláVio Gomes & petrô nio dominGues • Printing Ideas: Intellectuals and Racial Mobilization in Post-War Brazil (1945-1955)

A POLYPHONY OF VOICES

In the early 1940s, Abdias do Nascimento led a movement to create a theater

group with a view to protesting against the exclusion of people of African descent

from the Brazilian stage and their marginal inclusion in minor roles or as grotesque

caricatures (Nascimento, 1968; Martins, 1995; Semog & Nascimento, 2006). After in-

troducing the idea, he started organizing preparatory meetings. The rst would be

held at the Amarelinho Café in Cinelândia, in downtown Rio de Janeiro, including

Aguinaldo Camargo, Wilson Tibério, Teodorico dos Santos and José Herbel. The se-

cond took place at the Fênix Theater. That is how the Black Experimental Theater (

Tea -

tro Experimental do Negro

; TEN) was born on October 13, 1944.

Due to the lack of plays with dignied portrayals of the situation of Black peo-

ple, the group decided to stage

The Emperor Jones

, by the distinguished American

playwright Eugene O’Neill. It debuted on May 8, 1945, in the city’s most important

theater, the Teatro Municipal. It was the rst in a series of productions through which

the TEN managed to stir up Rio’s theater scene for almost a decade (Fernández, 1977;

Douxami, 2001). Going beyond theatrical productions, the TEN group expanded its

activities in the social, political and intellectual spheres of life in the city, which was

then the capital of Brazil. In addition to holding several events involving intellectuals

and other movements in the struggle to restore democracy, it oered literacy classes

and created the

Instituto Nacional do Negro

, a Black studies department run by the

sociologist Guerreiro Ramos. Also in 1950, Abdias do Nascimento launched his abor-

tive candidacy for city councilman in Rio de Janeiro, on the Social Democratic Party

(PSD) ticket. This was the most important phase for the TEN, when it established the

Museu do Negro

and held beauty contests called the

Rainha das Mulatas

(Queen

of the Mulatto Women) and

Boneca de Pixe

(Tar Baby) (Müller, 1988; Motta-Maués,

1997; Oliveira, 2003; Flores, 2007).

The TEN group played a leading role in controversial activities that attracted con-

siderable media attention.1 The aim was to raise public awareness of the problems

facing Black people. Within this spirit, for example, it organized an art competition

in 1955 with the central theme of the “Black Christ”. But in the late 1950s, the TEN

showed the rst signs of crisis and decline, and gradually faded out in the following

decade. Any movement that defended Black people’s rights was viewed with mis-

1 For a memoir of the TEN, see NASCIMENTO (2004).