Abstract:
In the decades following World War II, a national movement for Black self-determination emerged in Brazil while the African colonies of Portugal were at war for independence. Against the backdrop of these liberation struggles, several transnational opportunities were constructed that, sometimes inadvertently, facilitated relationships between these movements. This dissertation examines these networks between Black militant-intellectuals in Brazil and Portuguese-speaking Africa. To do so, I analyze correspondences, press publications, organizational documents, the writings of Black intellectuals, state surveillance documents, and oral histories. From this analysis, I highlight three key infrastructures: the circulation of Pan-African poetry, opportunities for education abroad, and international convenings. I argue that these modes of travel served as the conditions of possibility for Black internationalist thought and practice in the Lusophone world in the second half of the 20th century. It is my hope that this work will expand histories of Black internationalism, uplift the intellectual legacy of struggles against racism and colonialism in the Global South, and complicate our understanding of transnational solidarity.
