#MariellePresente: Black Feminism, Political Power, and Violence in Brazil

Marielle was a black woman who made people uncomfortable. She made the elite uncomfortable, she made the masculine world, the politicians, uncomfortable.

Benedita da

On the night of March 14, 2018, Rio de Janeiro City Councilor Marielle Franco convened and spoke at a meeting of young black women called “Moving Structures” at the Casa das Pretas, or Black Women’s House, in Rio. During the meeting, thirty-eight-year-old Franco shared her experiences as a politician and encouraged the women present to occupy spaces of power. Within thirty minutes of leaving the meeting, Franco and her driver, Anderson Gomes, were gunned down in their car. Franco was killed by four bullets to the head that were fired through her car window. Franco’s assistant was the only survivor of this armed attack. This shockingly public act of violence took the life of a much beloved political figure and activist who openly opposed the increasing police violence in Brazil and who stood up for marginalized populations in the country, including favela residents, the LGBT community, and members of Afro-Brazilian religious communities.

Franco’s assassination was an attempt to silence a rising political star who was an outspoken critic of state violence and the marginalization of minoritized groups in Brazil. In this sense, it can also be seen as an attempt at epistemicide or killing of subaltern knowledge The national and global outcry that took place after Franco’s murder and that continues today is a testament to the ongoing relevance and resonance of her voice and work on the frontlines of human rights activism. The day after Franco’s assassination, women who were present at the meeting of black women she organized the night before bravely marched in front of the Rio de Janeiro City Hall “saying her name and demanding justice. These women were the last people to see her alive, since she and her driver were killed by gunfire soon after leaving the meeting.

Franco’s brutal murder led to public outcry in Brazil and many other countries in the weeks and months following her death and the creation of social media hashtags such as #MariellePresente (Marielle Present) and #MarielleVive (Marielle Lives), which continue to be used to call for a full investigation of her murder. The slogan “Lute Como Marielle Franco” (Fight Like Marielle Franco) has also been used to encourage resistance to injustice in Brazil and elsewhere There was an unprecedented response to Franco’s murder on social media in Brazil and abroad during March 2018. During the 42 hours following Franco’s death there were 3,573,000 tweets by 400,000 twitter users in 54 countries and 34 languages on topics related to Franco The number of social media posts about Franco far outnumbered those made after the Brazilian Congress’ 2016 decision to impeach then-President Dilma Rousseff. Protests also took place in the days following Franco’s murder in Brazilian cities, such as Rio, as well as in Paris and New York City In the months after her death, political leaders in France, Spain and Portugal voted to name areas of their cities after Franco, honoring her life and legacy. In September 2019, a garden in Paris was named in honor of Franco. All of these developments highlight Franco’s status as a domestic and international human rights icon following her death.

This article examines Marielle Franco’s importance as a political figure, both during her life and since her untimely death. It examines the intersectional dimensions of Franco’s political life, by locating her within two main political genealogies: black women politicians in the city of Rio de Janeiro who preceded her; and black feminist activists in Brazil and the United States who influenced Franco’s life and politics in profound ways. By situating Franco within these two genealogies, the analysis seeks to highlight and explore the significance of black women’s engagement in both activism and office seeking as paths to expand and critique democracy in Brazil. This article concludes by examining Marielle Franco’s positioning within overlapping crises of anti-black genocide, femicide and violence against the LGBT population in Brazil. While Franco’s life and the causes for which she fought were and are valuable and instructive in and of themselves, they offer also important insights into Brazil’s current and ongoing political crisis. Moreover, they highlight deeply entrenched practices of social exclusion and violence that are rooted in the specificities of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia in the Brazilian context.

Marielle Franco as an Activist-Politician

Franco was and continues to be an important political figure in Brazil and internationally because her life and political work merged multiple, intersectional struggles. There was a richness and depth to Franco’s political work that came out of her personal experiences as someone who lived and embodied multiple marginalized identities as a black woman activist and politician, who was from a low-wealth community and also openly identified as a lesbian. Franco exemplified a new generation of black Brazilian women who are activist-politicians. Parallels can be made between Franco and other black women politicians in Brazil, like Tal,ıria Petrone, one of Franco’s close friends, and women of color politicians in the U.S., such as Shirley Chisholm in the 1970s and more recently Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Cori Bush. As activist-politicians, these women typically entered electoral politics after being activists for various social causes. As politicians, they continued to fight for many of the causes they championed as activists, by working within and through formal political structures. They also have spoken truth to power and, in the words of Shirley Chisholm, have been “unbossed and unbought.

Franco became an outspoken critic of violence in her community after the death of one of her friends by a stray bullet in 2000. As a resident of Mar,e, a region comprised of 16 favelas in the North Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Franco witnessed high rates of violence by drug traffickers and police. Favelas are found throughout the Rio metropolitan area and are characterized by predominantly African descendant and low income populations. However, some scholars have also pointed to the economic diversity within favelas, including the presence of small businesses and lower-middle class residents Mar,e has approximately 130,000 residents and is the largest complex of favelas in Rio

Historically, popular discourses and government officials have perpetuated a view of favelas as sites of criminality and marginality. Such discourses have been highly racialized and are informed by anti-Black racism; they have also been used to legitimize state violence and repression in these communities The Brazilian state has increasingly criminalized and militarized Mar,e in recent years. It was occupied by Brazil’s military police, as well as army and navy troops, beginning in 2014 as the country prepared to host the World Cup This occupation has continued to the present. In 2008, Marielle Franco served on the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission into Militias (CPI), which investigated paramilitary groups in Rio de Janeiro. Importantly, this CPI found clear ties between police forces in Rio, the militias and politicians As Christen Smith has noted, Franco consistently critiqued “the endemic problem of state violence against Black and poor residents of communities like Mar,e, and she recognized this violence as genocide against black people in Brazil.

In thinking about Franco as an activist-politician, it is important to recognize the ways in which right-wing politicians in countries such as Brazil and the United States have also brought an ideological perspective and agenda to their political offices Similar to the United States, there has been an upsurge in the number of evangelical politicians in Brazil in over the past two decades, particularly in the Congress This has shifted politics to the right and has also laid the groundwork for the emergence of politicians such as Jair Bolsonaro, a conservative former federal deputy of the Social Liberal Party (Partido Social Liberal, PSL), who was elected president in October 2018. Bolsonaro became infamous for making sexist and homophobic remarks as a federal deputy and during his 2018 presidential campaign, including saying that he would rather have “a dead son over a gay son” and that he would not rape a female federal deputy because “she wasn’t worthy of it” (Polim,edio 2018).

Marielle Franco was elected to the Rio de Janeiro City Council in 2016, winning the fifth highest number of votes out of a total of fifty-one candidates. She was one of 32 black women out of a total of 811 politicians, or 3.9 percent, elected to city councils in Brazilian capital cities that year A member of the Party of Socialism and Liberty (Partido de Socialismo e Liberdade, PSOL), Franco was the only black woman on the Rio City Council from 2017 to 2018. She was an outspoken critic of the military occupation of Rio’s favelas, which was authorized by then-President Michel Temer in February 2018. She was also overseeing a commission that was closely observing the impact of the military occupation. The day before her assassination Franco tweeted about a 23-year-old Afro-Brazilian young man, Matheus Melo, who had been killed by the police, stating “Matheus was leaving church. How many more must die for this war to end?”

More than three years after it occurred, Franco’s murder remains unsolved, however the ongoing police investigation has implicated government agents and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in the shooting The bullets used in the shooting came from a lot of ammunition the Federal Police purchased in Brasilia in 2006. Military Police used bullets from this same lot to massacre 17 people in the Barueri and Osasco areas of the S~ao Paulo metropolitan region in 2015

Benedita and Marielle: Faveladas and Political Power

When considering Marielle Franco’s political influences and political genealogy, it is critical to acknowledge the political career of Benedita da Silva, the first black Brazilian woman to serve in a number of high-profile elected offices at local, state, and national levels. While Silva has rarely been the focus of scholarly research, her political career is instructive for understanding how race, gender, wealth and status have historically shaped Brazilian politics. Silva was elected as the first Worker’s Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) representative to the Rio de Janeiro City Council in 1982 and was the first black woman and favela resident to serve as a Rio City Councilor. Silva was subsequently elected a federal deputy in 1986, making her the first black woman to serve in congress. She also ran an unsuccessful campaign to become the mayor of Rio in 1992; one which was marked by overt racist attacks against her. Silva later became the first woman to serve in the senate, as well as being elected Vice-Governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, assuming the governorship in 2002 when then-Governor Anthony Garotinho resigned to become a presidential candidate. As a result, Silva became the first black woman to serve in any of Brazil’s 26 states and the only female governor at that time. Silva was the Special Secretariat for Social Assistance and Promotion during the Lula Government and was later appointed the Secretary for Social Assistance and Human Rights for the state of Rio de Janeiro. Silva was reelected a federal deputy to Congress in 2011 and has served in that role since then. In 2020, Silva ran unsuccessfully to become the mayor of the city of Rio de Janiero. Jurema Batista was the second black woman elected to the city council in 1992, later becoming a state deputy and serving until 2006.

As a congressional representative during the middle and late 1980s, Silva devoted her time and energy to the situation of domestic workers and pushed for the inclusion of legislation protecting their rights in the 1988 federal constitution. She also championed the interests of indigenous communities, the impoverished and fought against racial discrimination and domestic violence, as well as being a staunch advocate for reproductive justice, especially as it related to coerced female sterilization. As a federal deputy in 1991, along with Senator Eduardo Suplicy, Silva presented a proposal to constitute a Parliamentary Inquiry Commission to investigate female sterilization in Brazil. This inquiry led to the passage of a 1996 federal law designed to curb the practice. Silva’s involvement with issues of reproductive justice was grounded in her own experience of having undergone an involuntary sterilization procedure that left a lasting impact on her life

Unlike elite, white male politicians, Silva drew from her personal experiences as a favela resident and former child laborer, domestic worker and factory worker to conceptualize alternatives to prevailing social, economic, and political conditions in Brazil. She also used her specific vantage point as a poor black woman to advocate for a more equal and democratic society. This drove her politics and exemplified “theory in the flesh” or “epistemic privilege,” as they have been conceptualized by Chicana intellectuals such as Cher,ıe Moraga and Paula Moya

Importantly, the concept of “theory in the flesh” draws links between social location and the epistemic value of marginalized experiences. By drawing on her own “theory in the flesh,” or “sentir na pele” (feeling it in the skin), a phrase used by many black Brazilians to describe their visceral experiences of racism, Benedita da Silva used her personal experiences and observations to push for more just and equitable legislation and social policies.

Silva’s mere presence in political spaces that were occupied and controlled by affluent and privileged white males for decades challenged dominant narratives about black women’s proper place (i.e., as domestic servants or sexual objects). She often referred to herself as a “mulher, negra e favelada (woman, black woman and favela resident), as she did in a speech given before the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C. in November 2002, an elite space that has historically been the domain of white, male politicians from Latin America. As someone who was from the Chap,eu de Mangueira favela and who continued to live there after taking office, Silva also challenged popular beliefs about the aptitude and intelligence of people from poor, predominantly black communities, as well as deeply entrenched racial and class hierarchies Silva also experienced sexual harassment from male politicians and was the only Rio City Councilor who was not given an official municipal vehicle based on the rationale that cars could not climb the hills in her favela community As I have argued elsewhere, notions of “place” that reflect gendered racism historically have been used to circumscribe the social mobility and life possibilities of black Brazilian women This has led to a dearth of black women in the political arena.

Over the past four decades, Benedita da Silva’s political work has played an important role in creating space and visibility for black women’s specific needs, experiences, and interests in political arenas that traditionally ignored them. As she wrote in a 1992 publication for the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies:

The achievement of the goals for which we struggle – the construction of a truly fraternal,

egalitarian and just society, without discrimination is intimately linked to the consciousness-raising (conscientiza¸c~ao) of women. Therefore, the primary task of the black movements is to amplify the capacity for the consciousness-raising of our people. Committing itself so that our next generations can have better living conditions and so that the working of consciousness-raising alongside the black woman laborer is deepened. This will lead to the advancement of the struggle against oppression and exploitation of the black community, in particular of the woman, who suffers a triple discrimination. It is necessary, therefore, that all of us – blacks and whites, men and women – are committed to the struggle for the emancipation of the black woman, respecting our own way of fighting for our true emancipation

Like many of Silva’s speeches and publications, these statements opened new possibilities for black women to be seen and recognized as political subjects. Silva called attention to multiple intersecting forms of discrimination that black women experienced on the basis of gender, race, and class, and highlighted the need for all social groups to be allies in the struggle to achieve black women’s “emancipation.”

At the same time that Benedita da Silva emerged as a political figure at the national level in the mid-1980s, black women were beginning to form organizations and collectives across Brazil that would profoundly impact how politics were done in the country. Importantly, this work was occurring within the context of Brazil’s transition to democracy and during a time when activists and civil society organizations were demanding increased rights and recognition. The black movement and women’s movement both emerged during the 1970s and toward the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 to 1985. Black women were instrumental in both movements and began to form their own separate organizations in the late 1980s. Both Benedita da Silva’s political contributions and the work of black women activists were critical to reshaping the political arena in Brazil since Brazil’s transition to democracy, and providing a context for Marielle Franco’s emergence as a political figure.

While there are numerous similarities between Franco and Silva, there are also important differences that shaped and distinguished their political trajectories. Perhaps most importantly, Silva emerged as a political figure during Brazil’s transition to democracy in the 1980s, a period when there was a great deal of civil society mobilization and general optimism about the country’s future. Franco became a political figure in a very different political context and her emergence as an activist and politician was tied to her outspoken criticisms of state violence and longstanding practices of social exclusion. Franco’s entrance into electoral politics in 2016 took place when democratic institutions began to come under attack in the country and coincided with the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, as well as increasing political repression.

Like Franco, Silva has been affiliated with a leftist political party, the Worker’s Party (PT); however, in many ways, Franco’s politics were much more radical and progressive than Silva’s, given her strong stance against police violence. In addition, as a lesbian who was open about her sexuality, Franco challenged the rampant homophobia and violence against sexual minorities in Brazil. She also championed causes that were personal to her and that directly related to her lived experiences within the context of social dynamics in the city of Rio in the 2010s, a time period which saw increasing state violence against marginalized communities. Similarly, Silva’s politics have been grounded in her lived experiences as a favelada and, while on the Brazilian left, she has also been critiqued for the likely influence her beliefs as an evangelical Christian have had on her political positions.

As I note in the following section, Franco saw herself as a beneficiary of Benedita da Silva’s path-breaking political career and encouraged other young women to continue the tradition, although limited, of black women running for office in Rio de Janeiro, as well as at the state and federal level. Silva and Franco shared the same platform in Rio on March 8, 2018 during commemorations for International Women’s Day just six days before Franco was killed. Several days after Franco’s assassination, Silva spoke of her admiration for Franco in an interview for the BBC noting, “Marielle had the potential to be a (federal) deputy, senator, president of the republic. Silva also recognized the tremendous obstacles that individuals like she and Marielle faced to be taken seriously and recognized beyond their communities, “There is an effort almost supernatural for those who are from the favela … to be someone in life, to struggle for what you believe in. This is the person they executed. It could have been me, or another idealistic young person. In her interview, Silva also drew parallels between her own experiences as a politician early in her career and the violence that took Franco’s life. As a Rio city councilor in the early 1980s, Silva received threatening phone calls telling her to stop denouncing police violence. She also experienced more resistance to her political ascension as she moved from serving on the Rio City Council to serving in Congress; resistance that she described as not only being “a question of the social (class) order” but “a question of the racial order. Importantly, Silva called attention to the role that racism played in shaping her political trajectory, countering popular beliefs that classism was the primary form of discrimination in Brazil.

Black Women’s Underrepresentation in Brazilian Electoral Politics

Unlike the United States, race has rarely been acknowledged as a factor in Brazilian electoral politics and there historically have not been widespread appeals or framings of a “black vote. The emergence of affirmative action policies in higher education and employment in the early 2000s shifted racial discourses and important ways and created new space to challenge Brazil’s longstanding image as a “racial democracy,” including in the realm of electoral politics. The increasing number of black women who have run for electoral office in recent years highlights the emergence of political dynamics that foreground race, as well as its intersection with gender

Despite the political ascendance of figures such as Benedita da Silva and Marielle Franco, blacks in general and black women, in particular, are woefully underrepresented in Brazilian politics. At the time of Brazil’s October 2018 national election, three Afro-Brazilians served in the congress, including one woman. During 2018, in the 513-member lower Chamber of Deputies, about 20 percent of federal deputies identified as black or brown. In addition, Black women held around 1 percent of seats in the Chamber of Deputies This is despite the fact that 56 percent of Brazil’s population self-identified as being either preto/a (black) or pardo (brown) in the country’s 2018 National Household Survey In addition, black women make up 29 percent of Brazil’s population of just over two hundred million people There is also a larger problem of women’s underrepresentation in electoral politics in Brazil. In 2018, Brazil ranked 153 out of 193 for women in government even though the country adopted gender quotas to promote the number of women running for political office in the 1990s

In Brazil’s nationwide election in October 2018, an unprecedented number of black women ran for office with about 13 percent of female candidates being Afro-Brazilian. In fact, 1,237 black women ran for office In the states of Bahia and Minas Gerais, the number of black women running for office doubled from 2014 to 2018. Two hundred and thirty-one black women from Rio de Janeiro state stood for election in local, state and federal races – more than any other state in Brazil and more than double the number who ran in 2014 It should also be noted that many female candidates in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second largest city, said that Marielle Franco’s murder inspired them to run for office. In fact, three women who were her close advisors – Renata Souza, Mo^nica Francisco and Dani Monteiro – were all elected as Rio de Janeiro state deputies in 2018. Renata Souza later ran for the mayorship of Rio de Janeiro in 2020. The impact of Franco’s death on black women’s political ambitions was widespread and could be felt throughout Brazil. Following Franco’s murder, $10 million (U.S.) dollars flowed into Brazil to support black women seeking to enter electoral politics

Tal,ıria Petrone, a friend of Marielle Franco and also a member of Franco’s party PSOL – the Socialism and Liberty Party – was a city council member in the city of Nitero,i when she launched a successful bid to become a federal deputy in the Brazilian Congress from the state of Rio de Janeiro during the 2018 election. In a September 2018 interview, Petrone described Franco’s murder as a barbarous act and a politically motivated crime, noting “Certainly this brutal assassination awoke a sense of urgency for the occupation of politics in many women, especially black women. She also noted that the candidacies of women, especially black women, reflected the “strengthening of resistance to machismo and racism, resistance that always existed in the peripheries and favelas and in this form will grow even more.

From Luto to Luta

When Marielle Franco’s widow, Mo^nica Ben,ıcio, ran for a Rio City Council seat in 2020 as a PSOL candidate, her campaign materials described her candidacy as going from luto (mourning) to luta (struggle). This play on words conveyed the ways in which Black women and white leftist activists, such as Ben,ıcio, turned Franco’s assassination into a platform for progressive social change and entrance into electoral politics. The Black women who gathered in Rio de Janeiro and marched on March 15, 2018, the day after Franco’s assassination, also exemplified this courageous practice of turning pain and grief into struggle. Through marching in front of the Rio City Council Chambers for all of Brazil, and indeed all of the world, to see they communicated the importance of the lives of Franco and Anderson Gomes, her driver, and displayed their pain and grief publicly They refused to let Franco’s murder passar em branco (pass into white) or go unnoticed. Instead, Black women were making a collective and public statement that the brutal extinguishment of Franco’s life was an unacceptable and shocking act of violence and needed to be recognized as such. At the same time, the Black women who bore witness to Franco’s life and death, many of whom had spent their final hours with her at the Casa das Pretas the previous evening, were also demonstrating their collective will to resist the forces that caused Franco’s death and that threatened their own lives and communities. As a resident of Mar,e and an activist-politician who sought to do politics differently, Franco was a source of hope for members of marginalized communities, not only in the city of Rio de Janeiro, but throughout Brazil, and across the world.

Another important example of transforming luto into luta can be seen in the work of Franco’s mother, Marinete da Silva, and sister, Anielle Franco, in establishing the Marielle Franco Institute in 2019. This Institute has created an important space and platform for crystallizing and continuing Franco’s political vision, work and legacy. In 2020, the Instituto Marielle Franco released the Agenda Marielle Franco (Marielle Franco Agenda), a document outlining a political agenda for the municipal elections that were scheduled to take place in November of that year across Brazil. This agenda was launched on a website with the same title that outlined Franco’s political philosophy and political vision

The Marielle Franco Agenda was a call to do politics differently and a clear demonstration of the impact Franco’s life and legacy had on the political landscape in Brazil by the time municipal elections took place in November of 2020. It was also an attempt to ensure that Franco’s legacy continued in concrete ways and that its impact would be multiplied. The agenda was endorsed by 3,000 individuals and seventy Brazilian organizations. Supporting organizations included established Black women’s and feminist organizations, such as Criola, CFEMEA, the Rede Feminista de Sau,de, and the Articula¸c~ao de Mulheres Brasileiras. A broad coalition of supporters ranged from Catholic organizations, such as Catolic,as pelo Direito de Decidir, to organizations representing sexual minorities, including the Alian¸ca Nacional LGBTIþ, and Lesbibahia. Supporters also included organizations that worked with black and anti-racist voters and those that worked with favela communities. The Marielle Franco Agenda represented an historic mobilization of civil society organizations in support of a nationwide political agenda.

The increased number of black women who ran for political office in 2018 was heralded by the Brazilian media as the “Marielle Effect” and women who were inspired by Franco have been called “sementes” or seeds, a reference to her lasting impact in the political arena During the 2020 election cycle, the Marielle Franco Institute helped to foster a new political landscape that led to larger numbers of black women running for and being elected to political. Efforts undertaken by the Institute coupled with initiatives such as the “Meu Voto Sera, Negro” (My Vote Will Be Black) campaign attempted to raise awareness of progressive Black candidates and encourage the Black community to support them These efforts likely contributed to the marked increase in the number of Black Brazilians running for city council seats in 2020, as compared with 235,105 in 2016 There was also a noticeable increase in the number of black women winning city council seats in capital cities, with 3.9 percent being won in 2016 and 14 percent being won in 2020 In 2020, several Black women also ran for mayor in major Brazilian cities. However, as Gladys-Mitchell Walthour has noted, Black women also faced glass ceilings in attempts to be elected to these positions in cities such as Salvador, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro

“Nossos passos vem de longe”: historicizing black feminist struggle in Brazil

As a black lesbian and socialist from a community shaped by systemic poverty and state-sanctioned violence, Franco’s life and activism merged multiple struggles, making her an international symbol for human rights; however, it is also critical to contextualize her life and activism within the longer history of the black women’s movement in Brazil and black feminism transnationally. This is especially important because of the ways in which racial and color politics in Brazil can easily erase her blackness, as a light-skinned African-descendant woman, and turn her into a virtually white or non-black human rights activist. This “whitening” effect is due to Brazil’s history of color and racial categorization which has traditionally valorized European ancestry and whiteness while stigmatizing African ancestry and blackness. In the Brazilian context, Franco was likely seen as a light-brown (morena clara) or almost white woman by some as a way to disconnect her from blackness. However, it is noteworthy that Franco adopted a personal style that emphasized wearing natural hairstyles and African attire, as well as practicing Afro-Brazilian forms of spirituality. All of these things marked her as a “black” (negra) woman and were also political statements that challenged both white supremacy and black subordination in Brazil.

As someone who fought against racism and sexism, while also highlighting the struggles of black women, favela communities, and the LGBT community, Franco’s politics were intersectional and recognized that the oppressions experienced by marginalized groups in Brazil were interlinked and inseparable. Her intersectional approach to both formal politics and political activism was also rooted in her experiences of multiple forms of oppression and marginalization. However, while Franco adopted an intersectional approach to politics, she also recognized the importance of grounding her political work in the tradition of black feminism and centuries-long struggle and resistance by black women, in Brazil and other areas of the African diaspora. As she noted while speaking to young black women on the night of her death, “Nossos Passos Vem de Longe” (our steps come from far away). This phrase is often quoted by black women activists in Brazil as a way to think about the long history of their struggles for justice and recognition, which date back to the inception of slavery in Brazil in the early 1500s. When she invoked this history at the Casa das Pretas on March 14, 2018, Franco mentioned Benedita da Silva and Jurema Batista, both of whom served on the Rio City Council before her. As she stated, “In the [Rio] city council, before we entered, Jurema [Batista] was there ten years earlier. And ten years before Jurema was Benedita [da Silva]. We cannot wait ten more years or think that I will be there for ten more years.” Franco’s prescient statements on the night of her death conveyed the urgency of black women “occupying” political space, given the low number who had served on the Rio City Council, as well as the large gaps in time between their service over the previous 32 years. Sadly, Franco foretold her own death and soon-to-be future absence from this political space, noting that people could not expect that she would be “there for ten more years.” The world has access to Franco’s comments from the night of her assassination, including those cited above, because she recorded them on her own tablet, which speaks to her political savviness and foresight.

U.S. black feminism profoundly shaped Franco’s life and political activism. She read the work of and often paid tribute to black feminists from the U.S., such as Angela Davis, bell hooks and Audre Lorde. On the night of March 14, 2018, Franco quoted Audre Lorde who wrote, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. Franco shared this statement with her audience in both Portuguese and English. Franco’s knowledge of English was tied to her interest in reading black feminist texts from the U.S. and she used these texts to learn English When she quoted Audre Lorde in English on the night of her death, she did so in an attempt to cross a linguistic border and communicate with an African-American researcher from the U.S., Dr. Sharrelle Barber, who was present at the meeting. This small, yet significant act demonstrated the circulation of black feminisms across national and linguistic borders. In this case, Franco used the ideas produced by black women in the U.S. to build a transnational bridge to an African-American woman and diasporan sister who was visiting Brazil It was fitting that Franco quoted Lorde, since she had been instrumental in creating transnational ties between Afro-German and African-American women during the 1980s Franco’s “appropriation” of Lorde’s words and work both underscored and enacted a black feminist politics of solidarity and engagement across national and linguistic borders. It also foreshadowed the global and transnational impact and reception that her untimely death would have in the weeks, months and years to come.

While Franco’s politics were deeply informed by U.S. black feminism, she also drew upon decades of activism and theorizing by black women in Brazil. She frequently connected her activism and political work to black Brazilian feminists such as Beatriz Nascimento, L,elia Gonzalez, Sueli Carneiro and Jurema Werneck who developed intellectual and political interventions from the 1970s to the present that have challenged and disrupted Brazilian practices of racism and sexism

Sueli Carneiro, a leading Black Brazilian feminist and longtime leader of the S~ao Paulo-based NGO Geled,es, has used the term “enegrecer o feminismo,” or “blackening feminism” as a way to describe the political interventions of black feminists in Brazil. As Carneiro has argued

‘Blackening feminism’ is the expression we have been using to describe the trajectory of black women in the Brazilian feminist movement … Through such initiatives, it has been possible to formulate a specific agenda to simultaneously fight against gender and intra-gender inequality. We have affirmed and made viable a black feminist perspective that emerged from the specific condition of being a woman, a black woman, and in general, poor. Finally, we delineated the role that a black feminist perspective has in the struggle against racism in Brazil

Black women’s political work and critiques have been essential to demystifying and challenging the ideology of racial democracy, which led to longstanding denial of racism and racial discrimination in the country during much of the twentieth century. Black women’s activism was also instrumental in reconceptualizing democracy and citizenship in more inclusive and equitable ways as Brazil returned to democratic rule, following a military dictatorship which lasted from 1964 to 1985. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, black women’s organizations such as Maria Mulher (Porto Alegre), Geled,es (S~ao Paulo) and Criola (Rio de Janeiro) began to actively advocate for progressive cultural and policy changes that address black women’s intersectional experiences, as well as issues that affect black communities more broadly.

The work done by black women’s organizations and other black women activists has taken on heightened significance given Brazil’s extreme rightward shift and threats to democracy in recent years. It is also noteworthy that long-time black feminist and founder of the black women’s NGO Criola, Jurema Werneck, was the director of Amnesty International in Brazil at the time of Franco’s murder and has played a major role in calling for a full investigation of the murder. Werneck’s appointment at Amnesty International is a testament to her professional qualifications, as well as the visibility and respect accorded to the black women’s movement in Brazil, at least among many on the political left. Her appointment also placed her in a strategic position to prioritize and link the struggles against racism, sexism and state violence within a well-regarded, transnational human rights organization.

The black women’s movement in Brazil has historically been the strongest and largest mobilization of black women in Latin America and, indeed, in the Americas more generally. Black women have been organizing at the national level in Brazil for over three decades. By the early 2010s, hundreds of black women’s organizations existed across the country. Black women’s separate organizing can be traced back to the late 1980s when black women’s collectives and non-governmental organizations began to be formed. During the 1970s and 1980s, black Brazilian women faced sexism in the black movement and racism in the women’s movement, which led to the development of separate political spaces where they could focus on their needs and interests, as well as engage in discussions and actions that addressed both racism and sexism simultaneously Black women’s experiences with sexism and racism in Brazil during the 1970s and 1980s, were similar to those of black women in other areas of the African diaspora, such as the United States and England, during this time

Through collective organizing, activists in the black women’s movement have sought to challenge black women’s political invisibility and lack of adequate representation in the political sphere. However, although small numbers of black women have run for office, particularly at the local level, the majority of black women’s political work historically has taken place outside of formal politics. This has largely been due to white male domination of electoral politics in Brazil and deeply entrenched social and economic hierarchies in Brazil that have made it extremely difficult for black women to be considered viable political candidates, as demonstrated by Benedita da Silva’s political career.

During the early 1990s activists in the black women’s movement began to call for social movement organizations, policy makers, unions, and political parties to acknowledge the relationship among gender, race, and class in the development of policies and initiatives to address social inequality and discrimination. This was an especially important time in Brazilian history, since the country was returning to democratic rule and civil society organizations were working to reshape and reform Brazilian political culture. Black Brazilian women have also engaged in activism and policy advocacy at local, national, regional and international levels. Their first engagement in transnational activism took place during the 1994 United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and brought attention to the reproductive rights of black women, particularly as they related to abortion and female sterilization. Black Brazilian women were also involved in the 1995 U.N. Conference on Women that took place in Beijing, China and the 2001 World Conference against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Forms of Intolerance that took place in Durban, South Africa.

Black Brazilian women played a leading role in region wide organizing for the Durban conference, most notably during the regional conference of the Americas that took place in Santiago, Chile during December 2000. Longtime black feminist Edna Roland was chosen to be the special rapporteur during the Durban conference. In this role, Roland served in the second-highest position during the conference, thus giving greater visibility to black women from Brazil and the larger Latin American region. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Black Brazilian women’s transnational organizing related to United Nations conference was a sophisticated policy advocacy strategy that enabled them to place pressure on the Brazilian government. This strategy helped to shape policies in areas such as higher education (affirmative action) and health, which emerged and were prioritized during the administrations of Lula (2003–2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016). While the large black movement has often been credited with engaging with the state during the Lula and Rousseff administrations, black women played a central role in policy advocacy during this time, particularly through organizations such as Geled,es, Maria Mulher, Criola, and the Articulation of Black Brazilian Women, which is a national network.

In recent years, black Brazilian women have taken their concerns to the streets through marches and demonstrations, including marches for natural hair and “Empoderamento Crespo” (Kinky Hair Empowerment) and “Orgulho Crespo” (Kinky Hair Pride) in 2015 and 2016. On November 16, 2015, black Brazilian women held their first national march, The Marcha das Mulheres Negras contra o Racismo, a Viol,encia e pelo Bem Viver (March of Black Women against Racism, Violence and for Good Living) It took place in Bras,ılia, the national capital. Close to the date of the 2015 March of Black Women in Brazil parallel black women’s marches took place in Colombia, Uruguay and the United States as expressions of transnational solidarity The title of the march in Brazil included a focus on violence and the “good living,” (Bem Viver), underscoring critical issues of survival and well-being in Afro-Brazilian communities, as well as their impact on Afro-Brazilian women. While the notion of Bem Viver has a longer history in indigenous and black communities in the Andean region, it became part of the discourse of black Brazilian women during preparations for their 2015 march As Agust,ın Lao-Montes notes:

The interweaving of struggles against racism and patriarchal violence and their call for Bem Viver (the Good Life) links the discourse of Afro-Brazilian feminism to the decolonial feminist language and project of Indigenous and Black feminisms across the region. In these feminisms there is a vision for an ecological horizon beyond capitalist modernity that is expressed in multiple languages … Latin American feminisms are affirmed by and connected to a variety of Afro-feminisms across the globe

As the first nationwide political demonstration organized solely by black Brazilian women, the 2015 march marked the emergence of new forms of political activism and solidarity that linked the struggles against racism, sexism, homophobia, and religious intolerance, among other issues. Although black Brazilian women were major participants and organizers of previous national anti-racist marches, such as the 1996 Marcha Zumbi dos Palmares Contra o Racismo, Pela Cidadania e a Vida (Zumbi dos Palmares March against Racism, for Citizenship and Life) the 2015 march highlighted black women’s autonomous organizing and strength as a political force. The 2015 March of Black Women drew between 5,000 and 20,000 participants and resulted from a nationwide organizational process that began in late 2011 The March’s slogan “Vem Marchar Com a Gente” (Come March with Us) was a welcoming invitation for black women to connect with and march in solidarity with one another

A broad cross-section of black women participated in the 2015 march, including members of the LGBT community, quilombolas (residents of quilombo, or maroon, communities), and m~aes de santo (mothers of saints in the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candombl^e). Representation from these groups of black women highlighted the importance of sexuality, land struggles, and religion for many black Brazilian women. This was an important change, since these issues have not always been emphasized by the broader black women’s movement. In addition, the emergence and visibility of multiple forms of black female identity and subjectivity has been an important means of moving beyond universalist and monolithic notions of black women, something which the late scholar and black Brazilian feminist activist Luiza Bairros noted in a 2011 interview

The 2015 March of Black Women was a concrete expression of black women taking their concerns to the “streets” and before a national audience. Black women’s other recent marches for “Kinky Hair Pride” also highlight their increasing political visibility and collective mobilization related to Eurocentric beauty standards. Black Brazilian women have long experienced othering and discrimination related to their hair and other physical markers of gendered racial difference. In addition, discrimination against black women for wearing their hair in “natural” styles has increasingly been noted in news articles in Brazil related to this issue In addition, while political marches are distinct from both grassroots organizing and formal electoral politics as “ways” of doing politics, they can serve as important political interventions and opportunities to articulate both political aspirations and political agendas. By mobilizing against racism and violence, the participants in the 2015 March of Black Women challenged practices of physical, psychological and symbolic violence and marginalization that impact black women on a daily basis. As the manifesto for the March states, “We experience the most perverse racism and sexism by virtue of being black and women. We face daily white supremacy and patriarchy and sexism, which constitute a system of oppressions that prompt black women to fight for their own survival and the survival of their communities. These statements reflect many of the concerns and causes for which Franco fought, particularly as they relate to the survival of black women and black communities. As a resident of Mar,e, Franco was keenly aware of the impact of state violence on black communities, an issue which she also researched for her Master’s thesis in 2014

Life and Death at the Intersections of Gender, Racial, and anti-LGBT Violence

While Marielle Franco was an exemplary activist and politician because of the multiple forms of marginalization she embodied, experienced and resisted, it is also important to recognize how her death encapsulated ongoing and overlapping epidemics of interpersonal and state violence in Brazil. These forms of violence have been racialized, gendered and sexualized and have targeted blacks, women, and sexual minorities in the country for decades, intensifying in recent years as democracy has come under increasing attack. As someone who experienced the impact of all three forms of violence, Franco’s assassination highlights the ways in which they intersect for similarly situated black women in Brazil and elsewhere. Her death also demonstrates the fact that prominent activists and politicians are not exempt from the violence that impacts marginalized populations in Brazil on an everyday basis and typically with impunity.

Political Femicide and Violence against Black Women

Renata Souza, a member of the Rio de Janeiro State Legislative Assembly and close associate of Franco, described the violence that took Franco’s life as “feminicidio pol,ıtico” (political femicide), in a 2019 article written to commemorate the oneyear anniversary of her assassination Souza also noted that this gendered political violence weakens democracy in Brazil. Black women politicians have increasingly been targeted for violence in recent years, including members of Franco’s inner circle. Taliria Petrone, a black woman politician and one of Franco’s close friends, began to receive death threats after being elected a federal deputy for the state of Rio de Janeiro in 2018. An assassination plot against Petrone was uncovered in 2020 with the principal suspect, a militia leader known as Macaquinho, having direct ties to one of the suspects in Marielle Franco’s murder This discovery resulted in Petrone moving away from the city of Rio de Janeiro and suspending her political work for almost two years. Continued violence against black women politicians occurred during 2020 and 2021, with several being targeted by death threats and profoundly gendered and racialized political intimidation, further highlighting political repression and attempts to stifle diverse political voices. During the election cycle of 2020, black women candidates in the state of Bahia were the principal targets of political violence, through racist and sexist messaging on social media

The violence black Brazilian women experience often exists at the crossroads of interpersonal and state violence, as scholars such as Christen Smith have noted Brazil has extremely high rates of gender-based violence, despite the 2006 passage of the federal Maria da Penha law to address interpersonal violence. Black women are also the targets of police and state violence, although this violence is rarely acknowledged in the Brazilian media. As Christen Smith has argued, “Some of the boldest and most unabashed critics of police abuse are Black women whose personal lives have been touched by that abuse. This boldness put them at risk for abuse, torture, and even murder or death Although Franco’s murder was likely at the bequest of state agents, including Brazil’s current president, it should also be seen as part of a larger epidemic of gender-based violence in Brazil. The fact that Franco was a black woman highlights black women’s vulnerability to violence, as noted by activists before and during the 2015 March of Black Women. Data from Brazil’s 2018 Atlas de Violencia indicate that there was a 15% increase in the number of murders of Black women in the country from 2006 to 2016, while the rate decreased by 8% for non-Black women during the same period Franco’s murder also underscores the transnational dimension of the movement for black lives, as well as campaigns such as #SayHerName that have called attention to state violence against black women in the United States

Anti-Black Violence

Although Brazil has had high rates of police homicides for decades, anti-black state violence has intensified in the country in recent years, particularly following President Dilma Rousseff’s ouster in May 2016. As impeachment proceedings against Rousseff were underway between May and August of 2016, interim president Michel Temer swiftly moved to rollback progressive social policies that were enacted beginning in 2003 under presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. The Temer administration set the stage for the regressive gender and racial policies and repressive state practices that have continued and intensified since Jair Bolsonaro became president in January 2019. As noted earlier, in February 2018 Temer authorized military troops to occupy the favelas of Rio de Janeiro under the pretext of lowering the homicide rate. However, like other critics of the military occupation, Marielle Franco, saw it as a cover for state-sponsored genocide of black communities. It is also important to historicize this genocide since it has been taking place for decades and can be traced to Brazil’s longer history of slavery and colonialism, which began in the early 1500s. Moreover, the birth of Brazil’s contemporary black movement and organizations such as the Movimento Negro Unificado (Unified Black Movement, MNU), founded in 1978, came largely in response to police brutality and violence in cities such as S~ao Paulo, as well as efforts to challenge the ideology of racial democracy.

In the months following the February 2018 military occupation of Rio’s favelas, there was a marked increase in the number of Rio residents killed by the police, particularly young black males. A December 2018 article by Human Rights Watch noted that the highest number of police killings since 1998 took place that year According to the Public Security Institute, from January through November 2018, police killed 1,444 people in the state of Rio de Janeiro In addition, violent deaths did not decline markedly in 2018, despite the fact that the military occupied favelas in Rio under the pretext of curbing homicides. In fact, police killings increased by 38 percent from March to November 2018, when compared with the same time period the previous year. Between January and early May of 2019, military police killed 434 people These numbers translated into five people being killed a day. Most of the victims were Afro-Brazilian youth and had been killed “execution style with gunshots at close range to the back of the head, or by helicopter snipers.

Anti-black state violence in Brazil has been recognized by international and transnational organizations, such as the United Nations, which in November 2017 launched a campaign called “Vidas Negras” (black lives) to address the epidemic of police violence in Brazil, citing statistics that every 23 minutes a black youth is killed in Brazil Activists in cities such as Rio have decried state violence as a form of genocide since at least the early 2000s and Marches against Genocide have taken place nationwide in Brazil since 2014. A growing number of scholars have also examined how police and death squad killings function as forms of anti-black genocide in Brazil

During 2019, police homicides in the state of Rio de Janiero began to be carried out under the mandate of Bolsonaro ally Governor Wilson Witzel. The practice of using snipers from helicopters began in June 2018 when police allegedly opened fire from a helicopter in the Mar,e neighborhood, where Marielle Franco was from and which she represented on the Rio de Janeiro City Council. According to Human Rights Watch, “Police never confirmed they opened fire from the air, but residents counted more than a hundred bullet marks on the ground” (2018). Marcos Vin,ıcius da Silva, a fourteen-year-old boy, was one of seven people who died in the raid. He was on his way to school. Nearly a year later, on May 7, 2019, Brasil Wire reported that 13 people had been killed by helicopter snipers in the previous 72 hours. There is video footage from May 5, 2019 showing Governor Witzel speaking about the “operation” and saying that the CORE (Civil Police Special Forces), Military Police and Civil Police were going to “end, once and for all, this banditry that is terrorizing Angra do Reis … .We are ending this mess. We are going to put our house in order. Let’s go

State-sponsored and police violence have existed in Brazil for decades, as well as death squads that have targeted the black population. However, with Bolsonaro’s election as president, as well the broader decline in democracy, there was an increase in overt and unapologetic policies and practices of genocide by the government, as well as by ordinary citizens. When placed in this context, Marielle Franco’s assassination takes on additional significance given her role as an outspoken opponent of police violence and anti-black genocide. Her murder also highlights the growing repression of leftist activists and politicians in Brazil. During the five years preceding her death, at least 194 politicians and activists were killed in Brazil The fact that this trend goes back to 2013 demonstrates patterns of political violence and repression that pre-dated Dilma Rousseff’s 2016 impeachment and the 2018 election of Jair Bolsonaro.

Anti-LGBT Violence

Marielle Franco’s assassination illuminates growing anti-LGBT violence and homicides in Brazil. For many years, Brazil has held the dubious distinction of being the country with the highest LGBT murder rate in the world. During 2016, 331 murders were recorded, which amounted to one LGBT person being killed roughly every 25 hours (Strobl 2017). At least 420 LGBT murders took place in 2018 Growing anti-LBGT violence threatens to undermine gains in securing rights for sexual minorities in Brazil, including the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2004. The Brazilian Supreme Court also declared homophobia and transphobia to be crimes in 2019. This court decision came in response to growing violence against the trans community in Brazil over the previous decade. In addition, by 2017, Brazil was ranked as the most violent place for trans people in the world Investigations have also shown that Afro-Brazilian transgender women are targeted for violence and discrimination more often and receive fewer legislative protections. In addition, the Brazilian police often perpetrate violence against members of the Afro-Brazilian transgender women community In the weeks and months preceding Brazil’s October 2018 presidential election, several assaults and murders of LGBT individuals took place, in most cases at the hands of Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters.

Prior to being elected, Bolsonaro pledged to kill anyone who was “different” in Brazil; a pledge that was viewed as primarily targeting the LGBT community and Afro-Brazilians. People such as Franco are part of both communities, which highlights the importance of considering and addressing intersecting forms of violence. In countries such as Brazil and the U.S., African-descendant trans women are also the victims of violence and homicide at disproportionately high rates This further underscores how marginalization on the basis of both gender identification and race can have lethal consequences for members of African diaspora communities who are also sexual minorities.

In January 2019, Afro-Brazilian Federal Deputy Jean Wyllys of Bahia of the PSOL party resigned his seat and fled to Germany due to fears about his personal safety as a gay man and the only openly gay member of congress. Wyllys was also the first openly gay Afro-Brazilian politician. His forced departure was part of a wave of political exiles that took place after Bolsonaro’s election, something that had not occurred in large numbers since the military dictatorship Along with Wyllys, a growing number of academics and activists who work on issues such as racism and reproductive rights have been forced into exile. Wyllys received abuse death threats when he entered congress in 2011 and was given police protection within congress. As a congressman, Jair Bolsonaro targeted Wyllys with homophobic insults and charged him with “stimulating pedophilia. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asked Brazil to protect Wyllys and his family in November 2018. Both the violence directed toward sexual minorities and the increasing number of political exiles highlight the ways in which Brazil has become a hostile and dangerous place for those whose identities and political views represent differences that are viewed as problematic and unwelcome.

Conclusion

Marielle Franco’s life, activism, and untimely death provide important windows into issues facing Brazil during a critical moment in the country’s history. As someone who was firmly grounded in Brazilian and transnational black feminisms, Franco drew upon the political and intellectual contributions of black women in her political work and resistance. This enabled her to develop a complex and nuanced analysis of the Brazilian state and its perversely systemic practices of violence and exclusion. In considering Franco’s transnational influences, it is important to note that she was deeply inspired by Angela Davis. Given this, it is fitting that Davis joined Franco’s widow, Mo^nica Ben,ıcio, at an event in the U.S. in March 2019 honoring the one-year anniversary of Franco’s death. By joining the calls for justice for Franco and honoring her memory, Davis participated in ongoing transnational solidarity work focused on Franco’s legacy and the current struggle against authoritarianism in Brazil. This solidarity further highlights the links between black women across the diaspora that were discussed earlier in this article.

Marielle Franco continues to be presente, or present, among black feminists in Brazil and other areas of the African diaspora who draw strength and inspiration from her example of courage and resistance. She is also presente among the growing number of black women, as well as other activists and citizens in Brazil who are entering electoral politics in order to challenge the decline of democracy in the country. While Franco’s assassination was intended to silence her, it had the unintended result of amplifying her voice and directing greater attention to the causes which she defended. The lack of closure in Franco’s murder case several years after it occurred has also had the unintended consequence of keeping her memory alive and her name on the lips of those who care about justice. Marielle Presente. Marielle Vive.

Acknowledgements

This article benefitted from my time as a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at UNC-Chapel Hill in the spring of 2019. I would like to especially thank Elizabeth Havice, Chad Bryant and Maggie Melo for their feedback and comments on earlier versions of this article. My ongoing conversations and work with Sharrelle Barber also shaped the analysis found here. An earlier version of this work was presented at the Watson Institute at Brown University in October 2019. I also greatly appreciate the valuable comments of the anonymous reviewers for Souls.