The March of the Family with God for Liberty (Portuguese: Marcha da Família com Deus pela Liberdade) was a series of public demonstrations in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. The first march was held in

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...

on March 19, 1964, on St Joseph's Day,

Saint Joseph Joseph (; el, Ἰωσήφ, translit=Ioséph) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who, according to the canonical Gospels, was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. The Gospels also name some brothers of ...

being the

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or perso ...

of the family, and attracted an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 attendees.

Mobilization

The march was sparked by a speech by then President

João Goulart João Belchior Marques Goulart (1 March 1919 – 6 December 1976), commonly known as Jango, was a Brazilian politician who served as the 24th president of Brazil until a military coup d'état deposed him on 1 April 1964. He was considered the ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

on March 13 in which he called for political reforms including

rent control Rent regulation is a system of laws, administered by a court or a public authority, which aims to ensure the affordability of housing and tenancies on the rental market for dwellings. Generally, a system of rent regulation involves: * Price con ...

;

wealth tax A wealth tax (also called a capital tax or equity tax) is a tax on an entity's holdings of assets. This includes the total value of personal assets, including cash, bank deposits, real estate, assets in insurance and pension plans, ownershi ...

;

expropriation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

of land within 10 km of roads, railroads and dams, and the nationalization of oil refineries. For years, the mild reforms had been seen by the

US government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...

as threatening to its financial interests and hegemony in the region. Goulart had also called for nationalization of foreign mining concerns, such as US-owned Hanna Mining. To discredit Goulart, the US played on exaggerated fears of

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

through extensive propaganda supplied via

McCarthyist McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origina ...

journalists such as Clarence W. Hall and

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

-funded figures such as Father

Patrick Peyton Patrick Peyton, CSC (January 9, 1909 – June 3, 1992), also known as "The Rosary Priest", was an Irish-born Catholic priest, member of the Congregation of Holy Cross, and founder of the Family Rosary Crusade. He popularized the phrases "The f ...

, who helped exaggerate the threat of communism. The anticommunist propaganda instilled in Brazilians the specter of an imminent "Red" takeover during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

while the US government's financial and geopolitical motivations for removing Goulart remained hidden. The media-fed fears prompted Catholic women, especially the group '' Campanha da Mulher pela Democracia'' (CAMDE Women's Campaign for Democracy), to organize the march at

Praça da Sé Praça da Sé (English: ''See Square'') is a public space in São Paulo, Brazil. Considered as the city's central point, it is the point from where the distance of all roads passing through São Paulo are counted. The square was the location of man ...

, in São Paulo, and parallel marches elsewhere. The marchers demanded Goulart's impeachment and expressed strong opposition to his reformist agenda. The march was a precursor to the Brazilian coup d'état and prepared the public to accept a coup against Goulart. The US-backed coup installed a military dictatorship that lasted 21 years and arrested, exiled, brutally tortured, and killed thousands. Despite the substantial investment in anticommunist propaganda, no evidence of such a threat ever emerged. Their amnesia was aided by the 1979 Amnesty Law, which granted immunity to the regime's torturers, as well as by calls from former regime officials to "turn the page." The amnesia is seen in the occasional parade commemorating the dictatorship, usually by the right-wing military. In 2014, commemorative marches were held in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in support of the 1964 marches, the latter attracting around 150 attendees and around 50 counterdemonstrators.

References

{{Military dictatorship in Brazil 1964 in Brazil Military dictatorship in Brazil Protest marches Anti-communism in Brazil