Abstract

Black woman, scholar, and visionary—Beatriz Nascimento was a critical figure in Brazil’s Black Movement until her untimely death in 1995. Although she published only a handful of articles before she died and left only a few other recorded thoughts, her ideas about the symbolic relationship between quilombos (Afro-Brazilian maroon societies) and black subjectivity encourage us to re-imagine the meaning of Black liberation from a transnational, Black feminist perspective. This essay reflects on her life and intellectual contributions, making the argument that Nascimento should be considered a key figure in the radical Black tradition in the Americas. Not only did her ground-breaking theorizations of the Black Atlantic re-imagine this important concept from a radical, Black, female, Latin American perspective, but the general lack of knowledge of her theoretical contributions in contemporary theoretical debates in African Diaspora and Latin American Studies underscores the need to deemphasize the United States and English-speaking experiences in our discussions of global Black intellectual traditions, while simultaneously foregrounding black women’s contributions to Latin American philosophical and political thought.

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