Black Feminists’ Massive March
VidaAfrolatina Grantee Partners Mobilize Black Feminists in Brazil and Around the World
By Lori Robinson and Indhira Suero Acosta
November 25, 2025
LEFT TO RIGHT. Top left: VidaAfrolatina Grantee Partners Rede de Mulheres Negras do Rio de Janeiro and Rede de Mulheres Negras da Bahia with the Me Too International team. Top right: Suely Santos (left) of VidaAfrolatina Grantee Partner Rede de Mulheres Negras da Bahia and Angela Figueirido (center) of Coletivo Angela Davis. Bottom left: VidaAfrolatina Grantee Partner Rede de Mulheres Negras do Rio de Janeiro. Bottom right: VidaAfrolatina Grantee Partner Revista Afirmativa.
Can you feel it?
A seismic shift, emanating from Brasília, is rocking the world. “We are talking about the construction of a historic moment that brings together Black women from all corners of Brazil and the diaspora,” says Alane Reis, founder of Revista Afirmativa, a Salvador-based media collective. “Seeing a million Black women occupying the streets of Brasília is the realization of a collective, ancestral and political dream.
On November 25, 2025, the Marcha das Mulheres Negras por Reparação e Bem Viver (Black Women’s March for Reparations and Good Living) descended on Brazil’s capital city. Organizers estimate a final total of 300,000 marchers. This mass mobilization confirms that the anti-racist, feminist and dignified future the world needs is already being built by Black women.
Several VidaAfrolatina grantee partners, including Revista Afirmativa, served as catalysts and strategists, architects and amplifiers, of what Alane calls “one of the greatest political uprisings of our generation.”
Building the Future
The Black Women’s March is both an event and a process. Black women want systemic change. The March is a vehicle driving social movements toward that goal. In physical form, it’s the convergence of Afro-Brazilian women and Black women from around the globe in Brasília, on the expansive lawn situated between 17 identical buildings housing government ministries and stretching to the National Congress. And it is much more.
Women of all ages gathered the morning of November 25 to hear electrifying speakers, such as Federal Deputy Benedita da Silva and Minister of Racial Equality Anielle Franco, and demand a sustainable economic model, environmental justice and reparations. But the full agenda of the March includes 62 diverse events happening over six days, from November 20 to November 26.
Among the events slated for November 25, the National Congress honored Black women’s role in Brazil’s democracy. March leaders met with Edson Fachin, president of Brazil’s supreme court. Fundação Perseu Abramo spearheaded a dialogue about violence against Black women. A concert featuring reggae singers Célia Sampaio and Núbia, rappers Luana Hansen and Ebony, and the creator of the March’s anthem, Larissa Luz took place.
Many Black women’s organizations, domestic and foreign, hosted events before November 25, such as Festival Latinidades, which screened the documentary film Black Women in Movements. The Network of Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean and Diaspora Women held its General Assembly on the two days before the March. And Me Too International convened a circle of women to strategize on creating healing spaces for gender-based violence survivors.
Perhaps more important than what is seen and heard, the March cultivates connection, fortifies individuals and organizations, and raises a unified declaration of Black women’s demands. “This is an unparalleled opportunity to experience the power we have when we act collectively,” says Angela Figueiredo, founder of VidaAfrolatina partner Coletivo Angela Davis, based at the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia.
“Only those who participate in street movements know the significance of being together and the energy and power we are capable of mobilizing,” Angela continues. “What excites me most about the March is the same thing that excites me about [our] social movement: The ability to invent new things and the power of the collective.”
In 2015, organizers reported that 100,000 Black women flocked to Brasília for the first Black Women’s March. Angela realized the gathering would be extraordinary at the airport swarming with Black women wearing vibrant colors, headwraps, braids and other natural hair styles. “We were using our bodies as a space for political expression and identity affirmation,” she wrote in a chapter about the event in the book “Decoloniality and Afro-Diasporic Thought”. “Brazilian airports…had never seen so many Black women.”
While the 2025 March emerges from the legacy of Brazil’s first Black Women’s March 10 years ago, its foundation extends back even further. “It is the realization of centuries of resistance by Black women who sustain this country with their bodies, knowledge and practices,” says Alane.
Loving Response
It should come as no surprise that the women who envisioned and engineered this global event are in Brazil, the country with the second largest Black population in the world after Nigeria, and which ranks sixth on the World Population Index of income inequality.
The impacts of structural inequality are dire. Black women in Brazil are two times as likely to die from pregnancy-related problems as white women (Federação Brasileira das Associações de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia). Black women are 57% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women (Polo Médico). Brazil has the highest number of killings of trans people in the world, 76% of which are Black (Amnesty International). Black women are more than twice as likely to experience any kind of violence than white women in Brazil (Amnesty International).
A month before the Black Women’s March, on Oct. 28., Rio de Janeiro police massacred 121 people during a 15-hour raid under the guise of an anti-gang operation. In Brazil, 82.7% of people killed by police are Black (Empresa Brasil de Comunicaçao). Mothers’ loss of their children to state violence is another egregious trauma faced by Afro-Brazilian women.
“The March is an ethical and loving response to the racism that permeates all our lives,” says Erida da Silva of VidaAfrolatina partner Rede de Mulheres Negras do Rio de Janeiro. “It is the affirmation that Black women resist, organize, develop political thought and build collective paths to a just future.”
Black Feminist Teamwork
Steering committees in each of Brazil’s 27 states participated in the design and execution of the Black Women’s March. VidaAfrolatina grantee partners have contributed to this political process in various ways. Erida supported the development of the March’s political framework in Rio de Janeiro. Angela created a March committee at Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia, where her collective is based. Makota Celinha, founder of Centro Nacional de Africanidade e Resistência Afro Brasileira (CENARAB), arranged for several buses to transport women from Belo Horizonte to Brasília.
In partnership with prominent journalist Rosane Borges, Alane and the Revista Afirmativa team created multi-media content throughout the past year. They are producing a documentary about the March and are provided multi-media coverage in Portuguese, Spanish and English. “Our mission is to ensure that the legacy of the March becomes part of our collective political and cultural heritage and is widely disseminated and documented,” Alane says.
Transformation
VidaAfrolatina partners expect the March to have wide-ranging impacts, from exposing the reality of racism in Brazil and boosting Black women’s self-esteem, to altering perceptions of Black women as political actors and elevating their agendas for reparations and climate justice in spaces of political power.
The 2025 Black Women’s March firmly establishes Brazil’s African diaspora as a leader in the global fight for democracy, human rights, gender and racial justice. “[It is] symbolic and practical milestone of Black women’s political power, which reverberates in many languages and many voices,” says Alane.
Erida agrees. “The struggle of Black women is global and interdependent,” she says. “Our demands transcend borders. Our voices will resonate far beyond this day.”
For updates on the Black Women’s March on and after November 25, visit:
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Lori Robinson, Executive Director, VidaAfrolatina
Indhira Suero Acosta is a cultural journalist, columnist, broadcaster, press analyst and university professor. She is also the creator of the Negrita Come Coco, a character that promotes popular Dominican culture through social networks. Fight for the acceptance of Afro-descendant origins in society and, jokingly, denounces the evils that affect Dominicans.
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