Erika Hilton: Today we salute our ancestors, we salute our dean, our teacher Deputy Benedita da Silva, but we also salute Lélia Gonzalez, Beatriz Nascimento, Carolina Maria de Jesus, Sueli Carneiro, Tereza de Benguela, Xica Manicongo, Marielle Franco, who was brutally executed in a Brazil that still kills, persecutes, attacks, and violates the bodies, history, territory and dignity of Black women in this country.
Erika Hilton: We are marching because we believe that only by marching collectively and organized can we overcome the legacies of slavery; we can overcome the violence that still affects our lives.
We are marching for well-being, for reparations, for the lives of Black women, for work, for housing, for food, for quality of life, for access to education, so that we no longer witness mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, daughters crying the deaths of their loved ones in the territories, as we have seen recently.
Erika Hilton: We are marching, in these 10 years of the Black Women's March, because Brazil has still not repaired its history with us, because Brazil continues to attack and persecute us.
Erika Hilton: Today, without a doubt, is a day of joy, a day of celebration, because we are alive.