Stories with black protagonism begin to be told – 07/07/2023 – Guia Negro

It was almost 400 years in which blacks were treated as merchandise and animalized during the period of enslavement. Another 100 in which our history was sidelined and systematically erased by structural racism. But there is a change underway. It could be classified as “silent”, but the black movement is present with its cries for order and has changed the course of this narrative.

Black stories are finally starting to be told as they should: with protagonism. In the month of May alone, we had the announcement of three museums focusing on blackness. In Salvador, the National Museum of Afro-Brazilian Culture (Muhcab) will receive R$ 15 million from the City Hall to complete the building and exhibitions.

In Rio, a museum on the African diaspora should be built by 2026, with investments from the BNDES, in the region of Cais do Valongo, a port that received 1 million enslaved people, the largest contingent in the Americas. Cais do Valongo is listed as a World Heritage Site and will finally receive enhancement works, with signs, guardrails and lighting.

In São Paulo, the Zumbi dos Palmares University intends to transform the old headquarters of the Paula Souza Center, in Bom Retiro, into a Museum of the History of the Negro, with opening scheduled for May 13, 2024. paper, but show a change of course in the stories told in museums, as has already happened at the Immigration Museum, in São Paulo, or at the Rio Art Museum, MAR.

There are still disputed territories, as is the case of the Saracura Vai-Vai Movement, in Bixiga, São Paulo, which fights to change the name of the future station of the Orange Line of the Metro to Saracura Vai-Vai (name of the quilombo and the samba school that operated in the region). The movement also asks that the pieces from the quilombo found in the works be exposed in the future subway station, in addition to a heritage education project for the dissemination of history.

Still in the capital of São Paulo, the Memorial dos Aflitos begins to take shape in Bairro da Liberdade, recalling the cemetery dedicated to black and indigenous people that was present in the region in the 18th and 19th centuries. The winning architectural project, however, encounters resistance from the community and of the black movement, for showing a lack of understanding of the importance and complexities of the place.

In São Luís, the neighborhood of Liberdade, the largest urban quilombo in the Americas, gained signposts, with QR Code, in the cultural spaces for visitation. and should soon receive a tourist information center from the city hall. The initiative already reflects an improvement in the self-esteem of residents, in addition to a new income.

The capital of Maranhão has just experienced its peak, with the June festivities, which include bumba meu boi, cacuriá and the Creole drum, cultural manifestations of the African diaspora, so rich and so little known outside its territory. It shows that we still need to discover and want to experience these black cultures.

In Salvador, the celebration of 200 years of independence on July 2, which guaranteed the end of Portuguese rule in Brazilian territory, had more visibility than usual in the national media, with prominent spaces on news programs such as Globo Repórter and Fantástico, from TV Globo.

A popular uprising led by women like Maria Felipa, Joana Angélica and Maria Quitéria that opposes the narrative of September 7, 1822, in which a white man shouted “independence or death” in São Paulo lands, but did not guarantee the departure of the Portuguese at all the Brazilian territory.

There are still many steps, stories, characters, cultural manifestations and places with black protagonism that need to be told. But the important thing is that this game started to turn. We are in a hurry to see the black people in the spotlight and the time has come to collect this historic debt. Black narratives are urgent and we all want to know more, experience and tell the stories we are not told.

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