The formation of Brazilian social classes coincided somehow with hierarchies inhered from colonization: the peoples previously conquered and enslaved, who became defined through the classification by race, in that process also became subordinate. The extention of equal rights among the nation's members was constituted in a particular way. In this article I explore how social hierarchies were maintained and reproduced in an ideological context in which the liberty of citizens was the basis for the formation of the modern nation, and how the historical claim for freedom was substituted by equality as political motivation for Black activism.
Citizenship; Black activism; Mobilization rhetoric; Social inclusion