Racial Democracy

Racial democracy is the notion that Brazilian society is relatively free from the racial prejudice, discrimination, and tension found historically in the United States, South Africa, and other western nations. Supporters of this view indicate as evidence in its favor Brazil’s alleged peaceful abolition of slavery, the supposed lack of racial violence, the prominence of blacks in Brazilian historical and literary works, the absence of “Jim Crow” or apartheid laws, and the pervasive miscegenation of Brazilian society (Freyre 1986, 1963a; Degler 1986; Freire-Maia 1987; Fiola 1990).

Alan Doyle Myatt, “Religion and Racial Identity in the Movimento Negro of the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Iliff School of Theology and The University of Denver, 1995).