Born Margareth Menezes da Purificação, on October 13, 1962, in Boa Viagem, the Peninsula region of Itapagipe in Salvador. She is an internationally known, award-winning Brazilian pop star, but her music genre is predominantly the axé, samba-reggae, and samba-funk music of Bahia. From an early age, Menezes was surrounded by music, through her family’s love for it, and in her teens she began performing in the trios elétricos in Bahia’s Carnaval. In 1985, at the age of 21, she won the Troféu Caymmi for the Best Female Performer of Bahia, and she would win it again in the 1990s along with the Troféu Imprensa. Four years later, she recorded her first solo album dedicated to Bahian grooves. Her second album, Elegibô (Uma Historia de Ifá), stayed in first place for 11 weeks on the American charts in the World Music category. It was also awarded by Billboard magazine and Rolling Stone magazine appointed the album as one of the five best in the world in the same category. Other big hits include Me Abraça e Me Beija and Kindala. She is credited and appreciated for bringing the music of Bahia to the world.
Mãe Menininha do Gantois
Maria Escolástica da Conceição Nazareth was one of the most important mães de santo (iyalorixá or priestess of orixá) of the Afro-Brazilian religion, Candomblé. She was born in Salvador, BA in 1894 and for 64 years, she led the Candomblé house Ilé Ìyá Omi Àse Ìyámasé, located in Salvador in the neighborhood of Gantois. Mãe Menininha do Gantois, as she was called, became nationally known and well-respected for her kindness and affection. Her fight for the legalization of the office based religion and the consequent integration of religion in national society also made her respected by all. At the time that she inherited the position of mãe de santo at a young age, it was not easy to lead a terreiro (Candomblé house of worship) due to the persecution the religion suffered by the authorities in those days. Menininha, however, promoted the value of the religion and its integration into local society, obtaining the license to worship the orixás in 1930. Mãe Menininha died in 1986 at age 92. Her funeral was one of the greatest processions in Bahia. All mourned the death of one of the most beloved women of Brazil. Iba e Mãe Menininha!
Lélia Gonzalez: Afro-feminist
Lélia Gonzalez was an intellectual and activist of the Movimento Negro (Black Movement) in Brazil and primarily responsible for the development of black feminism in Brazil. Gonzalez was born in 1935 and grew up to challenge the reality of social vulnerability by achieving her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology, confronting racism and sexism in the social sphere, and organizing political actions while producing scholarly works. She was a member of the Unified Black Movement (MNU), an organization that changed the history of Black activism in Brazil in the 1970s. Gonzalez is credited with connecting common experiences of black women from Latin America and bringing those experiences to a national debate about the condition of black women and colonization. She was one of the few black women in Brazil who had the opportunity to participate in international discussions of the feminist movement and connect with organized Black women in Latin America and in the African diaspora as a whole. From this experience, Gonzalez advocated the construction of an Afro-feminist agenda in Latin America since Black women, in different contexts, were subjected to similar conditions of inequality and discrimination. Gonzalez’ theory of the intersectionality of race, social class, and gender as articulated categories of social marginalization is still the subject of debate in Brazil in the studies of Black women.
In 2010, the government of the state of Bahia created the Lélia Gonzalez Award to encourage public policies towards women in Bahian municipalities.