ABSTRACT
The Race and Democracy Project is a collaborative designed to comparatively interrogate the role of race in contemporary Brazil and the United States. In the 2000 iteration of the United States Census citizens were allowed to opt for a variety of racial/ethnic characterizations other than Black or White. This is regarded in some quarters as the evolution of the two-way racial division for which the United States is so well known. The chapter describes the sponsored programs that occurred in 1999 and 2000 in Brazil and in 2001 in the United States. The task is to consider the study of race. The chapter discusses the strivings of Africans in the Diaspora to find common ground and common means for achieving universal freedom since their forced relocation to the West. It considers the historical context, with special reference to how African cultural survivals have been harnessed, and how resistance and oppositional political stances have defined public actions.
