In this history of black thought and racial activism in
twentieth-century Brazil, Paulina Alberto demonstrates that black
intellectuals, and not just elite white Brazilians, shaped
discourses about race relations and the cultural and political
terms of inclusion in their modern nation.
Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the prolific black
press of the era, and focusing on the influential urban centers of
Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador da Bahia, Alberto traces
the shifting terms that black thinkers used to negotiate their
citizenship over the course of the century, offering fresh insight
into the relationship between ideas of race and nation in modern
Brazil. Alberto finds that black intellectuals' ways of engaging
with official racial discourses changed as broader historical
trends made the possibilities for true inclusion appear to flow and
then recede. These distinct political strategies, Alberto argues,
were nonetheless part of black thinkers' ongoing attempts to make
dominant ideologies of racial harmony meaningful in light of
evolving local, national, and international politics and discourse.
Terms of Inclusion tells a new history of the role of people
of color in shaping and contesting the racialized contours of
citizenship in twentieth-century Brazil.