Elizabeth Viana
Elizabeth Viana is an Afro-Brazilian sociologist and activist who was an active participant in the democratization process of Brazil. She was one of five students with feminist activist Lélia Gonzalez who founded the Group Lima Barreto, and was involved in the Nzinga Collective of Women and the Unified Black Movement (Movimento Negro Unificado). Her work prominently focuses on racial identity, academic and community activism, and reform of domestic and family roles. She currently lives in Vila Isabel, a middle-class neighborhood in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro. Early life Elizabeth Viana was born in Rio de Janeiro on December 4, 1954. Her father, Oswaldo Sadock (1927-2016), was a mechanical worker, and her mother, Espírito Santo Viana (1930-1978), produced and sold Bahian delicacies from home. Her parents married in Salvador, Bahia and moved to Rio de Janeiro to seek better living conditions. For a short period of time, the family stayed with Viana's godmother and paternal aunt, Perolina Costa Santos, and eventually settled in the Brazilian municipality Nilópolis in the southeastern region of Baixada Fluminense, where Viana began her activism during the Brazilian military government's authoritarian dictatorship that spanned from April 1964 to March 1985. Espírito died when Viana was