ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the factors driving Afro-Latin American women's activism and political mobilization during the late 20 and early 21st centuries. It focuses on Afro-Latin women's political thought and activism in Colombia and Brazil. Black women's organizations and activism are also well established in both countries, with Black women's activism in Brazil being the strongest in the Latin American region. Placing Afro-Latin American resistance and activism in a broader historical context is essential to challenging the myth that Afro-Latin communities have been passive or lacked political or racial consciousness. Ideologies of whitening and racial democracy have played a critical role in shaping racial dynamics and experiences of Afro-Latin communities during the 20th and early 21st centuries. In recent decades, the experiences of Afro-Colombian communities have been marked by intense violence and displacement. Afro-Colombian feminist scholar Betty Ruth Lozano has argued that Black women's forms of resistance have been more invisible and unknown than White women and Black men.
