Black Awareness Day in Brazil

Identity struggles are intrinsic to the black social movement that demands the sharing of land and wealth.

The date November 20 was proposed by the poet Oliveira Silveira, of the Grupo Palmares of Porto Alegre, in 1971, to mark black struggles, so that "black consciousness" would be a counterpoint to the official commemorations of May 13.

The first Black Consciousness Week held by Grupo Palmares in 1971 inaugurated the phase of the historiographical revision of the Negro in Brazil. November 20th became a symbol of resistance against slavery. From this historiographical revision emerged a critical perception of history that laid the basis for later definition of the main struggle banners of the Brazilian Black movement.

As a resolution of a national assembly, the day of Zumbi dos Palmares' death was declared by the Unified Black Movement, in 1978, as the National Day of Black Consciousness.

It is only possible to talk about black consciousness in Brazil if we reread the past with the eyes of the present. Black consciousness is the search for our historical memory and political action to deconstruct racism. For Blacks and indigenous people in Brazil, the right to a past of their own is confused with the right to exist today.