The little-known story of Brazil’s first black senator – 11/07/2023 – Power

It has been just over 40 years since Brazil had a black woman in the Senate for the first time. The pioneering spirit fell to Laélia de Alcântara (PMDB-AC), who took office in 1981, in the final period of the military dictatorship.

The senator was 57 years old and had never held a political position. Born in Salvador, she was an obstetrician, lived in Rio Branco, was married and had seven children. She died in 2005, aged 82.

With the arrival of the parliamentarian, the country now has two senators. The Senate already had Eunice Michiles (PDS-AM), white, who had broken male exclusivity in the institution just two years ago.

According to documents from the Senate Archives, Eunice was responsible for welcoming him. “I record with a hint of pride that Amazon once again had the privilege of bringing another female representative to this House, a fact that corresponds to women’s awakening to a more active role in society,” she said.

Laélia then made her first speech: “I thank you for the demonstrations of appreciation and affection. I hope to make a small contribution here and present some of the problems that the people of Acre have been suffering for a long time.”

She was elected in 1974, as a substitute, on the ticket headed by senator Adalberto Sena (PMDB-AC). She took office twice. First on an interim basis, for four months in 1981, when Sena was away to deal with his health. Then definitively, in 1982, after the death of the holder. The mandate ended in 1983.

Inside and outside the Senate, Laélia denounced racism.

“Anthropologist Sílvio Coelho’s fierce assessment that ‘the attribution of underemployment to the colored contingent was encouraged by a society interested in keeping at its disposal a barn of maids and car washers’ reflects the sad reality. It is high time that the black people no longer ‘situate themselves in the most critical points of the graphs, in the most mediocre indices of the statistics, in the most grim paragraphs of the reports'”, he spoke at an event at the Legislative Assembly of Rio Grande do Sul.

In the Senate, she read a report about a young woman who was expelled from a nightclub in Curitiba for being black and stated: “We still see that there are spirits slaves to prejudice.”

At the time, the idea that Brazil was a racial democracy was strong, with different races living in harmony. The dictatorship spread this old myth in order to delegitimize black militancy.

Senator José Fragelli (PP-MS) suggested that what happened in Curitiba was an isolated case. “In addition to being a great political democracy, Brazil is an example for the world of a racial democracy, because here we have no prejudices of any kind.”

Other senators stated that racism was, indeed, a widespread evil. “We must fight so that it is not a rare occurrence for a woman of color to join the Senate, the Chamber or the political or institutional life of this country”, said Pedro Simon (PMDB-RS) when using the example of Laélia herself.

Despite taking a stand against racism, Laélia did not declare herself black in any of her speeches. In one of them, she described herself as “a woman, doctor, parliamentarian and, above all, Brazilian”.

Historian Iracélli da Cruz Alves, who is part of the Network of Black Historians and Black Historians and is doing a post-doctorate at the Federal University of Maranhão on domestic workers in politics, explains that, given the historical context, it is understandable that Laélia has not explicitly declared herself black before the other senators.

“Even though it was the final period of the dictatorship, the government still pressured, censored and persecuted groups and intellectuals who problematized and debated the racial issue. It was a swampy field,” he said.

Cruz Alves understands that, by avoiding declaring herself black in the Senate, Laélia probably made a political calculation. “When a black person enters alone into a space of power that is white, they know that this will be a conflictive place and that they will need to resort to certain strategies to stay in it and obtain gains for the black population.”

For the historian, the senator adopted in Brasília a stance of “silencing” about her race, but never of “denial”. “From her speeches, it can be seen that she was attentive to the demands of the black movement and dialogued with it”, she states.

Laélia wrote proposals that benefited women. One of them established that the command of the family would fall jointly to the husband and wife, and no longer just to him. The same proposal allowed that, upon marriage, the man would adopt the woman’s surname.

In 1982, on International Women’s Day, she asked the Senate for an end to “pay discrimination, educational discrimination and so many others that are preventing the incorporation of women in economic production, in the arts, in the sciences, in politics”.

Eunice supported her and added: “From time to time people ask me if I am a feminist. If being a feminist means defending, as Your Excellency does at this moment, the equality of women, then I am a feminist. Now, if being a feminist means harboring the dispute with men, it means adopting the slogan ‘down with men’, so I’m not a feminist and certainly neither is Your Excellency”.

Senator Aderbal Jurema (PDS-PE) approved the behavior of his colleagues. “The senators marked the passage of Women’s Day with the lucidity and intelligence they possess, without feminist exaggerations.”

Laélia was unable to convince senators to approve any of her bills.

The senator was active in defending redemocratization. In her view, General João Figueiredo’s government seemed little committed to returning power to civilians.

She failed to be re-elected. In 1987, she took over the State Department of Health in Acre.

Historian Iracélli da Cruz Alves explains why the first black senator is practically unknown today.

“There is almost no academic research on her. This silence is a symptom of structural racism. The protagonism of black people in our history is erased. The senator’s trajectory shows that black people can indeed occupy different spaces on the national scene and influence the course of history”, he says.

For Cruz Alves, the simple presence of a black woman’s body in that space of power was immensely important. “First, because it provoked debates about racism. Since Laélia was black, senators questioned her about this topic and she took a stand. If she had been white, the topic would not have appeared. Then, because of representation. These white men saw that that space was not just theirs. Black women and black men saw that they could be there too. Debate and representation alone do not tear down structures, but they are important for change.”

After Laélia’s term ended in 1983, black women had to wait more than a decade to see themselves in the Senate again. Senators Benedita da Silva (PT-RJ) and Marina Silva (PT-AC) took office in 1995.

---

X-ray | Laélia de Alcântara

The first black senator, Laélia was born in Salvador, trained as a doctor in Rio de Janeiro and lived in Rio Branco, Acre. She was elected in 1974, as a substitute, on the ticket headed by senator Adalberto Sena (PMDB-AC), and took office twice. First on an interim basis, for four months in 1981, when Sena was away to deal with his health. Then definitively, in 1982, after the death of the holder. She died in 2005, aged 82.