This article analyzes the context in which the first bill against racial discrimination in Brazil, proposed by Representative Afonso Arinos de Melo Franco in the early 1950s, was formulated and approved. It explores the law's diverse reception; its trajectory in Congress; the contemporary racial debate; and, finally, the meaning and justification of the bill, according to Arinos. By turning racial prejudice into a criminal matter, with legal punishment, Arinos sought to shift the racial question from a political debate to a moral issue. The fight against racism, once translated into ethical mores inspired by the traditional view of a racially harmonic country, should inhibit the rising atmosphere of racial conflict rather than recognize the Black movement's sociopolitical demands.
Afonso Arinos Law; anti-racism; racial prejudice; Black movement; National Congress; post-WWII racial debate.