At her inauguration as Brazil’s new minister of racial equality, Anielle Franco described the country she wanted to work for. “One where a Black woman can access decision-making spaces without having her life taken by five shots in the head,” she says, interrupted by the audience shouting the name of her dead sister “Marielle”.
It’s doubtful whether Franco, a Black woman taking an office traditionally occupied by white men, would have been involved in politics had it not been for the tragedy on 14 March 2018. Marielle Franco, a socialist city councillor in Rio de Janeiro, and Anderson Gomes, her driver, were murdered by unknown assailants who opened fire on their car as they returned from a political event. Marielle was 38, the same age as Franco is now, and had been an outspoken critic of Brazil’s extrajudicial killings and police brutality.
