The colours of citizenship: black associations in the state of São Paulo (1897-1952)

Abstract

This project aims to investigate aspects of black associations understudied by the bibliography about the collective experience of men and women of that social group in São Paulo. Such experiences relate to autonomous organization at historically named associations and beneficents societies, recreational, fraternal groups, societies, clubs (contemporarily called black social clubs for their activists), cleaved by ethnic difference and created as forms of action against the prejudice and faced racial discrimination in different cities of the state over its historical presence in those contexts. Among its functions, there was creation of spaces of sociability, assistance, recreation, education, leisure, mutual support and solidarity to black members who could find no place in non-black related institutions. The associations highlighted for study start their activities before the first decade of formal abolition of slavery. Some of them crossed the twentieth century and are active in the current days, with their headquarters currently located in major cities located centers of São Paulo. The state of São Paulo has the fourth oldest black social club in Brazil still active founded in 1897, on Jundiaí city, starting point for this project. Nevertheless, there is not a significant amount of research on this subject, compared to other regions of the country with similar activities. Time boundary follows, therefore, the foundation of the oldest Paulista black social club in activity until others founded up to the mid-twentieth century. Important political and cultural transformations in the local, state and national, as well as changes in their own way to fractions of black social group crave a collective desire have the potential to be studied for this project, which is divided into broad general axis about the debate on the black associations and branches for individual research, aiming to explain the similarities and differences in local experiences of black social clubs, as well as the scope and limits of their actions as forms of organization of black social group in the competitive social order, exercise and daily claim of citizenship and rights. In addition to embracing individual research projects, which focus on empirical objects, different spaces and time, the present proposal also includes collective activities aimed at disclosure of sources and production of research tools on the São Paulo black associations; digital playback of collections to preserve endangered sources and facilitate research; and the availability of information on important sets of documents for this area of study. (AU)