BY CIARA NUGENT
ANIELLE FRANCO, BRAZIL’S RACIAL EQUAL-ity Minister, never planned to be a politician. That was her sister’s thing. Five years older than Anielle, Marielle was passionate, decisive, and a born activist. In her campaigning for Rio de Janeiro’s Black and LGBTQ communities, she would “act first and worry later,” Franco recalls. “I was more timid. Because I had my sister there as a leader, I stayed on the sidelines.”
That changed in March 2018. A year after taking a seat on Rio’s city council, Marielle was assassinated—in retaliation, her colleagues believe, for her activism against police violence, racism, and corruption. The search for justice thrust Anielle, then 33, into the national spotlight. A competitive volleyball player and English teacher, she pivoted to full-time activism, launching a nonprofit in her sister’s name, at a time when far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, elected in late 2018, was taking a hammer to the human-rights agenda in Brazil. Her tragic family story, warm personality, and deft use of social media turned the once reserved Franco into an unlikely leader in Brazil’s Black-rights movement.
Now 38—the same age Marielle was when she died—Franco finds herself in a much more prominent position than her sister might have imagined, with a real shot at advancing their dream of a fairer Brazil. Franco took office in January as Minister for Racial Equality after leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated Bolsonaro in October elections. Her task is to make sure Lula’s government delivers on his promise of equality for Black and Indigenous Brazilians.
The stakes are high. Police killings hit record levels during Bolsonaro’s presidency as he championed shoot-to-kill tactics; 84% of the victims in 2021 were Black. In 2022, a deepening post-pandemic economic crisis triggered a 60% jump in the number of Black Brazilians experiencing hunger—almost twice the increase among white Brazilians. Bolsonaro also gutted budgets of the programs and agencies designed to help marginalized communities. “This was a political project that he was pursuing—to push aside everything that was for Black people, for Indigenous people, for women, for poor people, for LGBTQI people,” Franco says. “I’m just glad that we got to interrupt him.”
Though the election was tight, stopping Bolsonaro was likely the easy part. To undo four years of backsliding on equality, and ultimately to push further ahead with new policies, Franco will need the backing of other ministers and legislators, many of
