ABDIAS DO NASCIMENTO AND QUILOMBISMO AS A NATIONAL EMANCIPATORY PROJECT

Abstract

The article examines Abdias do Nascimento’s formulation of quilombismo as a political, philosophical, and civilizational project of the Black population in Brazil. Drawing on the historical experience of quilombos, especially Palmares, the author under analysis turns the quilombo into a paradigm for social reorganization, proposing a model of anti-capitalist, anti-racist, Pan-Africanist and Afro-Indigenous society. The text discusses how quilombismo articulates the memory of resistance to slavery, a critique of the myth of racial democracy, and the defense of a state grounded in Black self-determination, grassroots democracy and the centrality of Afro-Brazilian culture. In dialogue with authors such as Clóvis Moura, Beatriz Nascimento, Lélia Gonzalez, Amílcar Cabral and Frantz Fanon, the article argues that quilombismo does not idealize the past, but mobilizes quilombola legacies as a theoretical and political tool for the radical refounding of Brazil on popular and pluri-racial bases. It concludes that this perspective repositions Black protagonism in debates on nation, class, development and the decolonization of the Brazilian state.