Inside one of the most daring and provocative Black organizations in Brazil of the last two decades, from the perspective of its founders and militants.
Rise Up or Die! describes the origins, main concepts, distinct phases, and visions of the future of one of the most innovative, daring, and militant Black organizations in Brazil. Firmly rooted in that country’s long tradition of resistance and rebellion against a nation that depends on the continued hyper-exploitation, dehumanization, abandonment, and social and physical death of Black people, the organization invented what it refers to as “bad manners in Black politics.” If bad manners mean a refusal to abide by expectations of decorum, analysis, collective organization—and indeed the Brazilian genocidal model of racial democracy—then Rise Up certainly fits the description. The organization invented a new political vocabulary, led to the formation of an autonomous Black School in Salvador (the Winnie Mandela School), and constantly attracts people from the most marginalized Black spaces of the largest Black nation in the world, second only to Nigeria.
Drawing on a constantly replenished matrix of Black radical traditions, the activists of Rise Up or Die relentlessly pursue invention as the necessary alternative to a social formation that simply hates Black people.
INTRODUCTION by João Costa Vargas 3
1. BEGINNINGS 12
(How Andréia and Hamiltons personal and community experiences prepared them
for the formation of Rise Up in 2005, from their childhood to the
consolidation of their political perspective.)
Intimacy with Death 12
Theater and Os Maloqueiros 14
Belo Horizonte 19
Growing Up Black in Porto Alegre, and Going to Medical School 24
The Mark of Blackness 32
Provocation Wednesdays 35
Prisons, Carcerality, and Communitarian Cultural Action 40
Grounding in Black Communities 46
2. PHASES 58
(The distinct phases of Rise Up, including its expansions, retractions. A
description of the ways in which Rise Up went from a campaign against the
genocide of Black people to a political organization.)
The Cabula Massacre: Evaluating the Collective Trajectory and Moving Forward
58
3. FUNDAMENTALS 66
(The key concepts informing the development of Rise Up, as well as the
analytical perspectives that emerged out of Rise Ups trajectory of
struggle.)
Creative Hatred 66
A Deep Black Sadness 72
A Collective Armor 75
Black Transnational Love 80
Vital Command 84
Sequela 85
4. FUTURITY 90
(Rooted in yet modifying Abdias do Nascimento and Beatriz Nascimentos
concepts of Quilombismo, this final chapter focuses on Rise Ups perspective
on a desired future that is autonomous and Black affirming.)
Quilombismo 90
Land 95
Futuristic Ancestrality 98
Andréia Beatriz Silva dos Santos is a cofounder and main organizers of Reja ou Será Morto/Reaja ou Será Morta (Rise Up or Die!). She is trained as a medical doctor.
Hamilton Borges dos Santos is a cofounder and main organizers of Reja ou Será Morto/Reaja ou Será Morta (Rise Up or Die!); Hamilton is a poet, writer, amateur gardener.
João H. Costa Vargas is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside and the author of The Denial of Antiblackness: Multiracial Redemption and Black Suffering.
