Gender, Race and the Urban Space: on the issue of shared struggle for Afro Brazilian and African Americans

Here are photos from last week's Afro Brazilian poster project, which was spearheaded by Dr. Teresa Cribelli, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Alabama. Dr. Cribelli's class and students taking "African Americans in the City" with me curated several posters, which help tell the story of the shared "Civil Rights" struggles of Afro Brazilians and African Americans. Last week's events included a Brown Bag lunch and two lectures by visiting Afro Brazilian scholar Amilcar Pereira. Aaron Posey, a student enrolled in "African Americans in the City," gave a short presentation at the exhibition reception. Dr. Lucy Curzon, Assistant Professor in the Art and Art History Department at the University of Alabama, provided initial guidance on how to "narrate" the posters, which among many things, unveil the ways in which the meanings of "blackness" differ greatly between the United States and Brazil even as responses to "blackness" are often the same. In short, to be black, or in particular, to be of African descent is often to be one who faces considerable struggle because of one's ancestral past.