ABSTRACT
The Africanists and Americanists, Black Soul, and the Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU) were three distinct instances of cultural and political activity in the 1970s. This chapter explores three separate politico-cultural developments among Afro-Brazilian militantes of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in the 1970s. These are, Africanistas versus Americanistas in Rio de Janeiro; the Black Soul movement of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo; and the development of Afro-Marxism and the Movimento Negro Unificado in Sao Paulo. It highlights the culturalist tendencies of the movimento negro and subsequently distinguished culturalism as a social practice from the ethico-political activities of cultural politics. The chapter utilizes the three moments analyzed to emphasize the necessity of reconceptualizing culture and racial politics within the discipline of political science. As a representation of the unification of national and international dimensions of Afro-Brazilian consciousness, Black Soul also signified a weariness with existing modes of cultural practice that had become commodified and, in an existential sense, deracinated.
