By PATRICIA HILL COLLINS*

Marielle Franco had emerged as a grassroots leader during a period when Brazil continued to struggle with its historical legacies of colonialism and slavery and its political history of dictatorship.

1.

In 2018, when Marielle Franco approached the podium to deliver her speech in honor of International Women’s Day, not all members of the Rio de Janeiro City Council wanted to hear her. As president of the Commission for the Defense of Women, Marielle Franco had vigorously defended women’s issues in legislative debates since her election two years earlier.

She expressed concerns about the human rights of women and also of the impoverished, largely black, populations living in Rio's favelas. As the first black woman elected to the City Council,^[1] She proposed bills that represented the interests of these groups – for example, night-time daycare for children whose parents had to work or study at night, a campaign against violence and harassment against women, especially in schools, and more transparency in city contracts.

She was particularly concerned about potential corruption affecting the public transport system, as well as contracts awarded to companies involved in the construction of stadiums for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.

When Marielle Franco stood up to speak, many supporters and opponents were present. She began by recognizing women’s international struggle for human rights: “This March 8 is a historic March, a March in which we speak of flowers, struggles and resistance, but a March that does not begin now and much less is it just a month to highlight the centrality of women’s struggle. The struggle for a dignified life, the struggle for human rights, the struggle for women’s right to life needs to be remembered, and it is not from today, it is centuries old […] when, in strikes and demonstrations, […] women firmly fought for labor rights.”^[2]

She also spoke about the various forms of violence that have affected women in Brazil. But as she spoke, someone interrupted her by shouting “Long live Ustra” – Ustra, a high-ranking military officer who tortured people during the 21 years of dictatorship in Brazil. Refusing to be silenced by the interruption, Marielle Franco continued: “Is there a gentleman who is defending the dictatorship and saying something against it? Is that it? I ask that the president of the house, in the event of demonstrations that may interrupt my speech, proceed as we do when the gallery interrupts any councilor. I will not be interrupted, I will not tolerate interruptions from the councilors of this house, I will not tolerate interruptions from a citizen who comes here and does not know how to listen to the position of a woman elected president of the Women's Commission in this house!”

The crowd applauded, and the president of the City Council [Tânia Bastos] intervened and asked for more security. After thanking the moderator for her intervention, Marielle Franco responded by pointing out the long-standing efforts to silence and control women: “It won’t be the last or the first time, but it will be a struggle for those who come from the favela.” Refusing to back down, she reiterated: “My speech was about violence against women […]. We have been violated and abused for a long time.”

Despite the interruption, Marielle Franco continued speaking, addressing a range of issues related to violence, including the military occupation of favelas that was taking place at the time, the unsolved murders of lesbians, the street harassment faced by black women, and how firearms were not the solution to violence. Significantly, she linked these expressions of violence to social inequalities of race, gender, sexuality, and class in Brazilian politics.

She went on to list “a variety of struggles on the agenda for women’s lives,” such as the legalization of abortion, the fight for better maternity wards, and the issues faced by women in entrepreneurship. She ended her speech with a strong call to action: “To the women who are building this history, who are with me. Let’s go!”

2.

A week after this impassioned speech, on March 14, 2018, professional assassins sprayed the car in which Marielle Franco and her driver, Anderson Gomes, were traveling with bullets. The shooters fled. Marielle Franco was 38 years old. The killers waited for her to leave a meeting and, in two cars, followed her for several kilometers. The morning after her death, tens of thousands of people gathered in the streets of Rio de Janeiro and across Brazil to express grief and anger over her murder.

Her death also caused shock around the world, with many seeing her death as a political assassination aimed at suppressing the ideas she represented. Assassinations of charismatic political leaders often occur during periods of social change. Marielle Franco had emerged as a grassroots leader during a period when Brazil continued to struggle with its historical legacies of colonialism and slavery and its political history of dictatorship.

The assassination of Marielle Franco occurred in the historical, social and political context of Brazil as a nation-state. As the documentary suggests Democracy em vertigem (2019), Brazil’s struggle for democracy has a long arc that spans a history of slavery, an extended period of dictatorship, and a young, flourishing democracy that continues to be challenged by authoritarian tendencies. Struggles for participatory democracy in Brazil have expanded political participation to include black women who had long been excluded.

The involvement of Benedita da Silva, an Afro-Brazilian woman, in the Workers' Party and the emergence of the black women's movement in Brazil opened the way for the political participation of black women.^[3] Marielle Franco was part of a constellation of social movements that aimed to reform Brazil’s democratic social institutions. The social movements that influenced her politics aimed to improve the lives of impoverished people, black and indigenous people, women, and LGBTQ people, by holding the government accountable.

She supported policies aimed at improving public health systems, expanding public education, defending the Amazon rainforest, and protecting all citizens from violence. Her human rights agenda was informed by the specific political, social, and intellectual challenges of implementing these ideas in the country. It is not uncommon for the assassinations of activists like Marielle Franco to occur during periods of political upheaval and social change, when both ideas and the policies they generate are in flux. The year of her death certainly reflected an upheaval in Brazil’s federal democratic institutions. Six months later, a candidate espousing a far-right ideology, Jair Bolsonaro, who had direct ties to the former military dictatorship, was elected president.

3.

In her insistence on being heard during her Women’s Day speech, Marielle Franco defended democracy as a vehicle for human rights. Her words pointed to the many forms of everyday, intersectional violence that she and Brazilian citizens have faced in defending their democracy. Focusing on black women, a population that has been especially harmed by street violence in the favelas and by violence directed at their sons and daughters, Marielle Franco argued that defending black women’s human rights through resistance to violence would improve the lives of many others.

Many black women are victims of violence, domestic violence, and sexual harassment in their jobs as domestic workers. They live in communities where the police turn a blind eye and offer little protection from groups that control the streets. Through her ideas and actions, Franco contributed to a community of speech that would support the full humanity of every individual in Brazil and also the democratic institutions that would be necessary to defend and fulfill the rights of all people.

Marielle Franco wasn’t killed just for making that speech in Rio de Janeiro’s City Council. When it comes to people like her, who are situated at lethal intersections of gender, race, sexuality and class, speaking the truth about their ideas can be a major threat to those in power. Living visibly in a honest body as a black lesbian mother and talking about it can create intersectional violence – but it also helped Marielle Franco gain a sense of freedom.

As a black woman in a country with high levels of poverty and where more than half the population is black, Marielle Franco knew that she was threatening traditional ideas about gender, sexuality, race and class. But she was visible and vocal anyway. She refused to moderate her views, despite being under surveillance. Challenging the effects of intersectional violence on black men and women is one thing; challenging the system of ideas that explains and legitimizes state-sanctioned intersectional violence is another. An honest body politics generates these contradictions between risk and reward.

*Patricia Hill Collins is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland College Park. Author of, among other books, Lethal intersections: race, gender and violence (boitempo).

Originally published on Boitempo's blog [https://blogdaboitempo.com.br/2025/03/14/o-ultimo-discurso-de-marielle-franco- Quando-a-verdade-ameaca-quem-esta-no-poder/]

Notes

[1] In reality, before Marielle, elected in 2016, two other black women had already served in the Rio de Janeiro City Council: Benedita da Silva (1983-1986) and Jurema Batista (1992-2002).

[2] I want to thank Clarice Cardoso for bringing this speech to my attention and for translating it.

[3] Medea Benjamin and Maisa Mendonça, Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman's Story of Politics and Love (Oakland, Institute for Food and Development Policy, Global Exchange, 1997).

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