Marielle Franco was born into a poor migrant family in Rio de Janerio, Brazil on July 27, 1979. She was raised in one of the worst neighborhoods in the Brazil, the favela Maré. The favela Maré is a huge neighborhood, that has around 130 thousand inhabitants. She later became an advocate for the people who face abuse in the favelas.
The favelas are huge neighborhoods made up of thousands of houses and buildings. The favelas have a lack of infrastructure and the people that live there don’t have the resources that the other areas have. The favelas is also one of the most dangerous parts of the cites with underage prostitution, cartels, police abuse, and alot more criminal activities.
The drug problem in the favelas was huge when Marielle Franco was growing up. This led to the military police entering the favelas. The people that live there viewed the military police as the enemy. The military went in there with tanks, heavy artillery, and other things that military’s often go to war with. The police killed many innocent people in the cross-fire with the cartel and with their abuse of power. Residents also experienced racism, and corruption. This led to thousands of people dying.
The situation in the favelas is what inspired Marielle Franco to do what she did. She wanted to stop the police brutality, racism, and corruption that the favelas faced. So in the 2006 she joined the Socialism and Liberty Party. This group helped fight for the rights of the people in the favelas. She later joined the Human Rights Commission. When she was on the commission she provided support to families who lost love ones in the favela massacres.
“We don’t want social rights only after the war on drugs ends or drug trafficking ends. As citizens of the city and citizens of the favela, we want them today.”
Marielle Franco
Marielle Franco later ran for the position of councilor and won. She was the only black women to be elected that year. This gave a lot of women and people from the favelas hope that they can some day make it out and have a better life. She was a role model to thousands of people.
All of her efforts helped many people all across Brazil. She helped fight for the rights of people in the favelas, and helped many people get closure from the massacres that killed their family members. But unfortunately she was executed on March 14, 2018 by two police officers. She ended up being killed by the very thing that she was fighting against.
Even after her murders were arrested she inspired thousands of people to protest and fight for the rights of the residents of the favelas.
Works Cited:
Fernandez, Maritza, “Marielle Franco,” Black Past, electronic resource: https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/franco-marielle-1979-2018/
Author:Luis Molinuevo
I loved writing the bio of Marielle Franco. It was the first time that Ive done something like this for others to see. I learned a lot about Marielle and the area that she lived in. For example I learned a lot about Brazil and what is going on there. I wanted to keep the bio short and just give information that was important. There are many things that I could have done better like show the abuse that the people faced better.
This is an excellent bio of Marielle Franco, it was very informative about her life and the ways she fought for change. Personally, I have not known about Marielle Franco before this post, and so this bio gave me a big understanding of who she is and how her efforts helped people in Brazil.