IN THIS article, the author deals with three issues: the various modes of integrating "blacks" into Brazilian society; the likewise diverse manners by which the idea of a Brazilian nation came about; and, finally, the active role of "black" intellectuals in forming what we understand as "racial democracy". He argues that "black" intellectuals were responsible for the comprehensiveness and capillarity of the "racial democracy" doctrine amongst us, which for a long time was an important instrument for the political mobilization for blacks. This doctrine incorporated elementary ideas, dispersed throughout Brazilian history, that had been developed mainly by "white" intellectuals, such as Joaquim Nabuco, Gilberto Freyre and Arthur Ramos, but were later reworked and re-signified by black intellectuals, regardless of how the latter came to be integrated into Brazilian society and how they identified themselves as nationals.
