ABSTRACT

State Department Assistant Secretary K. Merrill asked a subordinate to respond to a letter from Representative Henry W. Temple on the subject. Striving to portray Brazilian racial discrimination as logical, appropriate, and right, this US official used a comparison to the situation inside the US to imply that discrimination at home could be characterized as equally necessary and good. After the watershed of anti-colonial struggles and the US civil rights movement, comparers are more likely to commend African Americans for clear-sighted dignity and lament Afro-Brazilians' irrational patriotism or apathy. The Brazilian government had sent instructions to consuls in St. Louis, Norfolk, New York, New Orleans, Baltimore, Chicago, San Francisco, and Barbados regarding BACS. Over the course of the 1920s, civil rights groups, community organizations, and congressional people whose constituents had been offended staged letter-writing campaigns, filed legal actions, and registered plentiful complaints with representatives of both states.