In response to the Brazilian federal government’s mismanagement and dismantling of institutional structures and public policies related to the preservation of Brazilian cultural heritage between 2019 and 2022, the Forum of Organizations in Defense of Brazilian Cultural Heritage was created in the city of Porto Alegre on October 10, 2019. The Forum currently consists of a network of 26 national organizations and associations of professionals, researchers, professors and holders of traditional knowledge, all involved in the preservation of Brazilian cultural heritage. By promoting actions, events and publications, it stood out, during the previous government, as a place of resistance to threats to cultural heritage, for example, in the campaign to defend the collections of the Truth Commissions of the Civil-Military Dictatorship, “in defense of the democratic rule of law” (title of the note published regarding the coup acts of January 8, 2023) and for the “defense of the rights and heritage of traditional peoples and communities” against demonstrations by politicians from the Central-West and North regions of Brazil. Having its work recognized and respected, the Forum, reinforced by state Forums installed in several states of the Federation, continues today as a significant source of resistance to threats to cultural heritage and the human rights linked to it, and also as a source of proposing affirmative actions in the defense of this heritage. It’s this trajectory, highlighting the struggles, campaigns, projects and actions that have as their main objective the defense of cultural heritage as a defense of human rights and social justice that I intend to present here. Also pointing out the paths that have been followed after the end of this sad period in Brazil’s political history.