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‘She could have been our Martin Luther King Jr’ – tribute to Marielle Franco

The city councilwoman advocated for the rights of the most oppressed Brazilians. This is why people around the world are mourning and protesting her death. Español

By Juliana de Moraes Pinheiro
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Mídia NINJA/Flickr. [CC-BY-SA-2.0]. Some rights reserved.

Marielle Franco in August 2016. Credit: Mídia NINJA/Flickr. [CC-BY-SA-2.0]. Some rights reserved.

In Brazil, the federal government’s makeup does not reflect the societal DNA of the population. More than 54% of the country’s population is black, but about 80% of the parliament and 98% of the senate is white. Only two black senators have ever been elected. Women hold only 22% of senior positions in government; just 2.4% of them are black.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0