Brazil has had a distinctive definition of national and racial identity, and it has changed considerably over time, and at each time held out different possibilities for social mobility and citizenship. This paper traces changing relationship between black identities and citizenship through four periods in Brazilian history: abolition, black protests in the 1930s, postwar re- democratization and the democratic movement against the military dictatorship in the 1970s. It emphasizes how the complex intersection of nation, social relations, class and race has had profound effects on not only the categories used to label people, but also on the nuanced definition of the goal of efforts to overcome inequality.
