Brazil Initiative Events

Luiza Bairros is the Former Minister of the Secretary of Policies for the Promotion of Racial Equality [Ministra de Estado Chefe da Secretaria de Políticas de Promoção da Igualdade Racial] in the first cabinet of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (2011-2014). Prior to this post, she served as the Secretary for the Promotion of Racial Equality in Bahia. Born in the city of Porto Alegre, Bairros is one of the most renowned activist-scholars of the Brazilian Black Movement. She completed her undergraduate studies in Public Administration and Business Administration at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in 1975, her Masters in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Bahia in 1991, and her doctorate in Sociology from Michigan State University in 1997. Most of her social science research over the decades has focused on documenting knowledge in service of combatting racism in Brazil and throughout the Americas. She was instrumental in organizing with the National Association of Black Political Scientists the transnational research group, Race and Democracy in the Americas: Brazil and the United States. Her research led her to teach at the Catholic University of Salvador and the Federal University of Bahia as well as to produce edited volumes and essays focused on racial discrimination. Bairros worked with the United Nations Development Program to coordinate domestic and international agencies and civil society organization for the Third World Conference against Racism and Xenophobia. Throughout the years as a staunch activist-scholar and later as a minister, Bairros has always been at the forefront of the national struggle to affirm black identity and to improve the social and political conditions of blacks in Brazilian society. At this critical juncture in Brazil's history, she has much to say about the current economic and political affairs in general, and how they affect the country's black majority, specifically

Sponsored by the Africana Studies Department, the Brazil Initiative and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.