On May 13, 1888, slavery officially ended in Brazil with the signature of the Golden Law - Lei Áurea - by Princess Izabel. This year, the theme underlying the remembrance of the date is Unfinished Abolition.

Minister Edson Santos of the Special Secretariat of Policies for the Promotion of Racial Equality – SEPPIR – said in an article titled "Black Hands and White Hands Building Equality", posted on the Secretariat website today, that abolition was an achievement of active black and white members of Brazilian society, but "our black ancestors, though freed from slavery, did not receive from society or the State the means that would grant them true emancipation."

The Minister highlighted the enforcement of laws against racism and the protection and preservation of today’s quilombos – settlements originated from runaway slave communities – as some of the necessary measures to achieve ethnic and cultural equality. As a result of black activist efforts, November 20, the day Palmares quilombo leader Zumbi was murdered in 1695, is Black Awareness Day in Brazil. Zumbi is one of 10 national heroes commemorated in the Steel Book at the Nation's Pantheon in Brasília.

The Golden Law was signed at Paço Imperial, in downtown Rio de Janeiro. The original document is in the National Archives, also in Rio, and the gold quill used to sign it is at the Imperial Museum in Petrópolis, in Rio de Janeiro State.

Photo of Zumbi bust in Brasília: Elza Fiúza/Agência Brasil