Interview with Paulo Santos: the art and rebellion of Mundurucu na Confederação do Equador

Abstract

The interview with writer and journalist Paulo Santos aimed to understand his creative process for the comic book about Emiliano Felipe Benício, a 19th-century Black activist from Pernambuco, Brazil. He is one of those figures in Brazilian history about whom little documentation of his life and political trajectory remains. The graphic novel, Mundurucu na Confederação do Equador (Mundurucu in the Confederation of the Equator), written by Paulo Santos with illustrations by Libório Melo and Luciano Félix, portrays Emiliano Mundurucu’s pioneering actions against colonial domination in Brazil, and his participation in the fight against racial segregation in the United States. Spanning 158 pages, the narrative traces the trajectory of this Brazilian, who influenced several contemporary African-American activists, highlighting the fact that Mundurucu initiated the earliest recorded lawsuit against racism in the U.S., with records appearing in newspapers of the time.