Brazil Embraces Its Black Roots

RIO DE JANEIRO—Growing up in Rocinha, one of Brazil’s biggest slums, Maxwell Alexandre was reluctant to call himself Black. His mother, a Black woman herself, would have none of it. 

“She would tell people: ‘No, he’s not black; he’s gorgeous,’” said Alexandre, now 33 years old and one of the country’s most celebrated young artists. “It was as if beauty was associated with whiteness, as if dignity, talent, everything that was good was linked to being white,” he said.