Abstract
The objective of this article is to study the history of social and racial relationship in Brazil through the analysis of two main literature pieces: the short story “Um homem célebre” by Machado de Assis, and the novel The autobiography of an ex-colored man by James Weldon Johnson. The text examines specially the end of slavery and the post emancipation times, between 1870 and 1912, confronting national and modernist perspectives with the diaspora and black Atlantic studies. From the black blood that is diluted in the ideology of racial democracy, through the black blood that contributes to the national formation and to the congeniality of a modern and mestizo society, to the sublime slave and the almighty African American man who can transform human kind.
Keywords:
Post emancipation; Machado de Assis; James Weldon Johnson; racism; double consciousness; black music