UA Offers Brazilian Black Movement Exhibit at Birmingham Institute

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The history department at The University of Alabama and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute present the exhibition “O Mundo Negro: Posters from the Brazilian Black Movement, 1978-1998” from Tuesday, March 17, to Thursday, May 28, at the institute.

Admission to the institute, located at 520 16th St. North in Birmingham, is required to see the exhibit.

A reception for the exhibit will be from 6 to 8 p.m. March 17, at the institute. The reception is free and open to the public.

The posters shed light on the Brazilian Black Movement, an important Brazilian civil rights movement that arose from the centennial of the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1988.

Found in a basement in Charles Town, West Virginia in the early 2000s, the posters eventually made their way back to Brazil. Collected from across Brazil, the posters represent a national snapshot of the Brazilian Black Movement between 1978 and 1998 as well as a comparison with the U.S. civil rights movement.

“Through marches, plays, music and images, the Brazilian black movement sought to raise black consciousness and bring to light on a national scale the poverty, lack of access to education and police repression under which the majority of Afro-Brazilians live,” said Dr. Teresa Cribelli, assistant professor of history at UA.

Cosponsors are UA’s Bankhead Fund, the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South, the UA Diversity Committee, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the College of Arts and Sciences.

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. For admission information, go to http://www.bcri.org/plan_visit/HoursandAdmission.html.

The College of Arts and Sciences is the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.