The Race and Democracy Project and Black Lives Matter: Continuities in Racism, Cross-National Resistance and Mobilization in the Americas

This chapter traces the history of the Race and Democracy Project, composed of scholars from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists and Black Brazilian scholars and activists. It documents the project’s direct links to the Black Lives Matter Movement in Latin America. This transnational project brought together graduate students, scholars and activists to advance understanding of the similarities in structural racism across the Americas and mobilization of resources for social change. Through research, training, activism and conferences, the R&D project served as an iterative force in bringing together the human resources for this volume, whose geographical coverage validates the original conception of this broad world of Africanity.