By NESTOR BORGES *

Paper presented for UNESCO research in São Paulo, 1951

All that remains for us, as Tobias Barreto thought, is a second abolition.

Dear Mr. Dr. Alfred Métraus, Prof. Roger Bastide, Prof. Florestan Fernandes, Mr. Jorge Teixeira, ladies and gentlemen. (…)[I]

Before beginning my modest considerations on the subject for which I was enrolled, I would like to pay my sincere tribute to Prof. Roger Bastide for the title of “Doctor Honoris Causa”, which was deservedly conferred upon him by the learned University of São Paulo, certain that I interpret the feelings of this great anonymous crowd that I have the honor of representing here.[ii]

Along with this diploma, Prof. Roger Bastide, by right of conquest, will also be able to hold the title of honorary Brazilian, in light of his valuable contribution to studies on our social environment.

In the admirable pages of his studies on Afro-Brazilian poetry, Roger Bastide's personality was familiar to me, and when I was here for the first time, I learned to know him better through the philosophical impossibility with which he appreciated, in my disordered words, the attitude that best suited sociological observations.

I then saw, in this gesture, the sure hands that traced the magnificent interpretations that synthesize the anguish of our social environment in the bitter words of poets such as Caldas Barbosa, Gonçalves Dias, Luiz Gama, Cruz e Souza and Lino Guedes, that great friend whose loss we still mourn and to whom I pay the cult of my veneration and respect.

Thus, for all that he has produced and will continue to produce in favor of the improvement of our culture, Prof. Roger Bastide deserves our greatest applause, which is why I ask the audience, for the distinguished master, a vigorous round of applause (Applause).

Having signed up to speak on a subject whose importance exceeds the limited possibilities of my understanding, I ask the learned and cultured audience to wait for the development of the brief considerations that I intend to make regarding a problem that has been worrying the universal conscience, so that later, in a cordial debate, we can establish our own meaning for our conclusions.

This is the racial problem and the issues arising from it, including prejudices of the most varied kinds, a problem that will certainly find in UNESCO, the entity under whose patronage we are meeting here, the appropriate means for its solution.

Brazil, according to the facts that presided over its historical formation, will be able to cooperate in the solution of this great problem with elements that represent the very foundations of its existence, because, since colonial times, it was based on elements of African origin, reduced to slavery, that the entire economic, social and political evolution of our people took place.

Economic evolution because the slave represented an intrinsic value that was reproduced; social evolution because the slave also contributed to the increase in populations, notably when their descendants presented characteristics of the white race; political evolution because the increase in populations favored not only the possession of a large territory but also the defense of that same territory against constant foreign invasions.

To get an idea of ​​this value from an economic and political point of view, it is enough to mention the recognition of our independence by England, which also demanded this recognition from Portugal on the condition that African trafficking be abolished.

The attitude of Brazilian society itself, which, despite its ethnic, moral and spiritual formation, sought to prevent the abolition of trafficking and slavery by all means within its reach, thereby causing the fall of the regime itself, clearly demonstrates that servile property was the economic basis that maintained the social and political organization of the country.

In view of these facts and the consequences that arose from them, I allow myself to examine the issue of racial or color prejudice, the solution to which, here among us, lies in the very facts from which such consequences originated.

This situation did not go unnoticed by the great Luiz Gama who, recognizing in each freedman a potential slave, organized, here in São Paulo, a fund with the objective of raising funds not only for the slave's liberation, but also for his maintenance during the period of adaptation within the free population.

Tobias Barreto, cited by Roger Bastide in the footnote of his work on Afro-Brazilian poetry, also taught in the same way.[iii] Avoiding the racial problem, the great philosopher admitted that blacks and mulattos would generally be in a very low economic condition and would need a second liberation.

In interpreting the magnificent examples left to us by Luiz Gama, and in interpreting the magnificent lessons of Tobias Barreto, we must seek the elements necessary to solve a problem that, in addition to its clearly national aspect, is almost exclusively economic in nature.

Without excluding the moral responsibility of Brazilian society, in view of its own spiritual formation, the problem that we analyze here in its economic aspect is the entire responsibility of the State.

By providing society with a means of illicit enrichment and leaving the elements that contributed to this enrichment abandoned, the State is doubly responsible for our social and political imbalance.

This responsibility is further aggravated when we consider that the State, in addition to benefiting from the maintenance of serf property, sought, after abolition, the best way to recover for the society that also benefited from it, a situation that in no way matches the principles of legal equality included in our Constitution.

In fact, the measures adopted to provide agriculture with new workers, measures that never end, spending fabulous amounts on them, should have been dictated by the men responsible for the country's destiny, identical measures to support the large mass of freed workers, also providing them with the means necessary for their recovery.

None of this has been done to this day, after 63 years, at a time when economic stability is the basis of all social progress, all that remains for us, as Tobias Barreto thought, is a second abolition.[iv]

If the first gave us the title of citizen with the civil and political rights that come with it, it is up to the second to promote our economic emancipation which, when analyzed closely, belongs to almost all of Brazil.

In this way, we define very clearly and precisely our political ideology, or rather, our political doctrine, all of which is based on the principles that guided the abolitionist campaign, a movement that performed the miracle of uniting the majority of the Brazilian nation under the same banner.

We ask UNESCO, if the matter falls within its jurisdiction, to recommend to the countries that participate in it, especially the American countries, two small proposals: (i) that these countries include in their respective constitutions the elements that contributed to their ethnic formation; (ii) that the less favored elements in the historical formation of these countries be contemplated with economic measures that enable their recovery or their social valorization.

That's what I had to say. The distinguished audience has the floor. (Applause).

*Nestor Borges He was active in the black movement, presented a paper at the National Convention of Brazilian Blacks (1945), collaborated with the Senzala Magazine, was a member of the Palmares Association and participated in the Unesco Research in São Paulo (1951), coordinated by Roger Bastide and Florestan Fernandes..

References

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BASTIDE, Roger (1944). Afro-Brazilian poetry. São Paulo: Martins Publishing House. Available at: https://wp.ufpel.edu.br/grupoicaro/files/2016/05/Poesia-afro.pdf

BORGES, Nestor (1951). Economic situation of the Brazilian black: reasons and consequences. In. ELEVENTH ROUND TABLE of research on racial prejudice in Brazil, held at the FFCL of USP. Mimeo, November 17, 1951, p. 12-15. Document available in the archive: PDF 02.04.4531 (Mass Observation – Group Situation). Special Collection of the Florestan Fernandes Fund (BCo/UFSCar).

CAMPOS, Antonia (2014). Interfaces between sociology and social process: Integration of black people into class society and UNESCO research in São Paulo. Dissertation (Master's in Sociology) — Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Available at: https://repositorio.unicamp.br/acervo/detalhe/928554

NATIONAL CONVENTION of the Brazilian Negro (1946), senzala: monthly magazine for black people, n. 1, p. 10. Available at: https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=845094&pesq&pagfis=10

Abolition week (1952) ENDED YESTERDAY, Night Diary, May 14, 1952, p. 2. Available at: https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=093351&pasta=ano%20195&pesq=&pagfis=24346

FERNANDES, Florestan (2017). Meaning of black protest. New York: Oxford University Press;

FERNANDES, Florestan (2008). The integration of black people into class society: the legacy of the “white race”, volume 1. São Paulo: Globo.

GRADUATION (1954), The New Horizon, July-August 1954, p. 3. Available at: https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=845108&pasta=ano%20195&pesq=&pagfis=87

MARQUES, Elenir (2019). Palmares Group in Porto Alegre in the 1970s: the role of black women activists. Dissertation (Master's in Sociology) — Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Available at: https://lume.ufrgs.br/handle/10183/201760#:~:text=O%20grupo%20Palmares%2C%20conhecido%20majoritariamente,menos%20cultural%20e%20mais%20pol%C3%ADtico

BLACKS IN THE SOUTH no longer want Abolition as the date of the race (1973), Newspapers in Brazil, May 13, 1973, p. 27. Available at: https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=030015_09&pasta=ano%20197&pesq=&pagfis=9384

QUEIROZ, Maria (1974). Homage to Roger Bastide, Magazine of the Institute of Brazilian Studies, no. 15, p. 5-7. Available in: https://www.revistas.usp.br/rieb/article/view/69844

ABOLITION WEEK (1952), Night Diary, May 10, 1952, p. 2. Available at: https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=093351&pasta=ano%20195&pesq=&pagfis=24289

SILVEIRA, Oliveira (2003). November XNUMXth: history and content. In. GONÇALVES, Petronilha; SILVÉRIO, Valter (orgs.). Education and affirmative action: between symbolic injustice and economic injustice. Brasília: National Institute of Studies and Educational Research Anísio Teixeira, p. 21-42. Available at: https://etnicoracial.mec.gov.br/images/pdf/publicacoes/educacao_acoes_afirmativas.pdf

Notes

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[I] Research, editing and notes by Diogo Valença de Azevedo Costa (UFRB) and Paulo Fernandes Silveira (FEUSP and GPDH-IEA). This text reproduces the participation of Nestor Borges (1951) in the 11th round table of research on racial prejudice in Brazil, a document that can be found in the Special Collection of the Florestan Fernandes Fund, at the UFSCar Community Library.

[ii] This UNESCO research meeting on racial prejudice in Brazil took place at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters (FFCL) at USP on November 17, 1951, 10 days after Roger Bastide received the title of “Doctor Honoris Causa” from the same faculty at the University of São Paulo (QUEIROZ, 1974). As in other UNESCO research meetings held in São Paulo, this meeting was not chaired by coordinators Roger Bastide and Florestan Fernandes, but by Jorge Prado Teixeira (1925-1960), a young black intellectual, “Secretary of the Commission for the Study of Racial Relations during the UNESCO research in São Paulo” (CAMPOS, 2014, p. 328).

Some of the black movement activists who participated in the UNESCO research were also members of the Socialist Party (CAMPOS, 2014). There is little information in the press about Nestor Borges, but we know that he gave a speech at the National Convention of Black Brazilians and that he was one of the contributors to the magazine senzala (CONVENTION, 1946). A note from the newspaper The New Horizon, from 1954, indicates that Borges participated in the Palmares Association (FORMATURA, 1954). Between May 11 and 13, 1952, together with other entities of the black movement, Palmares promoted a series of conferences on abolition, in which Roger Bastide and Florestan Fernandes participated (ABOLIÇÃO WEEK, 1952; CLOSED YESTERDAY, 1952).

[iii] In the book Afro-Brazilian poetry, Bastide states: “Tobias Barreto, already foreseeing a later social situation, did everything possible to change the racial problem into a social problem. After the inevitable liberation of slave labor, Brazil will have only one people, and we saw that the poet had the vision of this national unity; but the black people and the world in general will be in a very low economic condition and will therefore need a second liberation” (1944, p. 50, note 3).

[iv] The thesis of the Second Abolition, suggested by Tobias Barreto, was developed in sociological terms by Roger Bastide and Nestor Borges. In 1964, in The integration of black people into class society, Florestan Fernandes highlights the political potential of this thesis.

In the 1970s and 1980s, The integration of black people into class society was an important book for the black movement. Two activists from the Palmares Group, Anita Abad and Helena Machado, highlight the influence of this book on the formation of the group (MARQUES, 2019).

A report by Newspapers in Brazil, in 1973, presented the group's main demand to the entire country: “Blacks in the South no longer want Abolition as a date for the race” (NEGRO NO SUL, 1973, p. 27). In an analysis of the history of this demand, which involved a series of demonstrations by the Unified Black Movement (MNU), Oliveira Silveira (2003), one of the founders of Palmares, reports on the struggles that would lead November 20 to become, with Dilma Rousseff, National Zumbi and Black Consciousness Day (2011), and with Lula, a national holiday (2023), 50 years after the demand was announced by Newspapers in Brazil.

In an article originally published in 1988, Florestan links the thesis of the Second Abolition to the struggle of the black socialist movement for the recognition of November 20: “A 'Second Abolition' depended on the black man himself, which would convert him into a citizen invested with the economic, social, cultural and moral requirements to assume the historical roles that were still reduced to a legal fiction. (…) The meaning of the date, which springs from the black consciousness and the collective libertarian compulsion of the most firm and determined black men in the egalitarian racial struggles, runs through and affirms Palmares and Zumbi. May 13 is opposed to November 20. (…) Freedom is not a gift, but a conquest” (2017, p. 53-54).

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