ABSTRACT
I clearly remember that day in April, 1984. It was a warm autumn evening in São Paulo. I was amongst nearly two million people who paraded in a huge park known as Vale do Anhagabau, located in the heart of the Brazil’s most populous city. It was the largest demonstration of a social movement which had begun a year earlier and which had, after a few months, taken over the streets of all moderate-sized and main Brazilian cities. In every gathering across the country, peaceful demonstrators wore white head bands and carried placards and banners demanding Free elections now!2
We wanted to elect our president, a civil right that had been taken from us 20 years earlier by the 1964 military coup d’état.3
