The formation of Parque Peruche as a black territory

Abstract

Since the abolition of slavery in Brazil, race relations were marked by the failure of the Estate to promote equal working conditions between whites and blacks. The arrival of the European immigrant in São Paulo was wrapped by color prejudice, engendering race stigma in work distribution. Between the turn of the XIX century and the first years of the XX century, the black population was settled in precarious housing conditions, in tenements close to downtown, where the commercial activity and the elite offered working opportunities. However, with the rapid expansion of the city, the planning regulations implemented after 1920 lead to urban renovation, a result of the enhancing of the downtown areas, inducing the displacement of the black population in these areas. Consequently, these blacks start to migrate to new neighborhoods opened up at the outskirts of the city, where they could settle in and create a solid core. During the 1930s, the poor and black population housed at the overflow area of the Saracura creek in Bexiga was evicted due to the construction of Avenida Nove de Julho. This avenue was part of the Plano de Avenidas, which integrated the set of improvements for São Paulo. At the same time, the Frente Negra Brasileira (FNB), through their journal, A voz da Raça¸ performed a campaign stimulating their readers to purchase urban properties to house themselves, in order to avoid rent. Thus, the black population saw in the new suburbs of Parque Peruche the opportunity to house themselves at a low cost, so they became the first significant population to occupy the neighborhood. More than a housing option facing the expulsion of the downtown areas, the migration to the outskirts of the city represented the freedom from the tenements, on behalf of the acquisition of their "own home". This research aims to contribute to the studies about the distribution and displacement of the black population in the city of São Paulo, taking the Parque Peruche as cutout, formed in the process of exclusion of the black population from downtown areas. The occupation of the neighborhood was a strategy adopted in order to combat the image of black men as marginal through their exit of tenements, by purchasing a property beyond Tietê River. With this project, we seek to treat the neighborhood not only as a place of housing for this black population, but also as a territory where their social and cultural manifestation could be free from police retaliation.