Since Marielle Franco and her driver, Anderson Gomes, were murdered on March 14, 2018, Brazilians elected Jair Bolsonaro as president, the former Lavo Jato judge and current Minister of Security, Sergio Moro, was unmasked as a biased politician, Brazil has grown 1% under the reins of Minister of Economy Paulo Guedes, the dollar hit unprecedented levels.
The Brazil of today, in many ways, is worse than the one the 38-year-old councilwoman knew and fought for.
Her assassination was a deafening warning to many Brazilians that, no matter how successful, known or loved by the people, black lives are expendable. In a country where two-thirds of all female homicides are of black women, their killers know that they can act with almost guaranteed impunity.
Despite the hopelessness that inevitably hits us all, Marielle’s struggle was not in vain. From the night of the 14th to the morning of the 15th, the offspring of the Maré favela became a personification of racial oppression and a symbol of resistance, not only in Brazil, but in the world.
In the days that followed her death, Marielle was honored in the plenary of the European Parliament. She was on the cover of The Washington Post.
Crowds protested her death and celebrated her life on the streets of metropolises around the world, from New York to London, passing through Paris, Munich, Stockholm and Lisbon, to name a few. Twitter and Facebook exploded, recording millions of mentions of “Marielle Presente” (Marielle is here), from places like Berlin, Miami and Montreal. People who had never heard her name, paid tribute to her using a hashtag from the Black Lives Matter movement: #SayHerName.