The Liberdade neighborhood is an institutional invention. This is what the exhibition shows. Freedom: a diverse neighborhood, which is open from this Tuesday, the 7th, in Ipiranga museumThat's because it was only 52 years ago, in 1974, that the São Paulo city government decided to deliberately create what was initially called "Oriental QuarterAs noted in an article in the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper at the time, it was "a five-year dream" of Japanese merchants. The invention required the consolidation of an aesthetic standard. 450 lanterns inspired by Japanese streetlights were installed, becoming the visual identity of the area, along with paving stones featuring Shinto motifs and a red gate. A large Japanese garden was created, typical festivals were organized (Flower and Star festivals), and merchants were encouraged to create signs with ideograms. The result was an undeniable success – more than a million people visit the neighborhood each year. Last year, the area was chosen as one of the 25 best travel destinations in the world, according to Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2026 ranking, a renowned publisher of travel guides.
Given this established reality, it is difficult to reopen any historical debate about Liberty. However, since April 2025, when the remains of a dozen people were discovered in the subsoil of one of its oldest buildings, the Chapel of the Afflicted, inaugurated in 1775 (during restoration), the unanimous opinions about Liberty have begun to be questioned by activists. The remains signal the discovery of the old Cemetery of the Afflicted, which was active until the mid-19th century and was where people of African origin and their descendants, as well as indigenous people, were buried. These people were tortured at the Pillory (yes, São Paulo had a Pillory in a public place, now demolished, and it was located where Largo Sete de Setembro is today, next to the current João Mendes Forum) and executed a few meters away, at Campo da Forca, where Praça da Liberdade is currently located. Incidentally, the exhibition features a reproduction of the "christening certificate" of Liberdade, with a copy of the City Council's edict, dated October 29, 1858, renaming Largo da Forca as Largo da Liberdade.
For the curators of the exhibition at the Ipiranga Museum, the plurality of social groups that inhabit or have inhabited Liberdade since its beginnings does not authorize a single territorial claim. Built at the confluence of two trails coming from the coast of São Paulo (one made by the indigenous peoples and the other by the Portuguese colonizers), Liberdade was originally a region of refuse. There was a cemetery, an execution square, a hospital, and a slaughterhouse, which did not make the place a particularly noble parish for the city's inhabitants. But, on the other hand, the traditionally cheaper land in the surrounding area attracted residents of various ethnicities, notably immigrants, over the centuries. Afro-Brazilians, Japanese, Italians, Germans, Russians, Americans, Chinese, Taiwanese, Lebanese, Haitians, Guineans. Although small, the exhibition attempts to recover the traces of these presences in the constitution of the neighborhood, with the help of institutions such as the Busshinji Buddhist Temple.
It is evident that there is a crucial component in the history of black slavery to be recovered, the curators admit. “We need to remember that both the Chapel of the Afflicted and the Church of the Hanged, the Church of Our Lady of Remedies, the Guinea Cultural Center, and the Jean Jacques Dessalines Occupation are all linked to black memories. I would say that, in this sense, the institutions in this exhibition linked to black memories are the majority,” explains the exhibition curator and director of the Ipiranga Museum, historian Paulo Garcez Marins.
The Church of the Holy Cross of the Hanged, built in 1886, was a place of devotion that supported the abolitionist movement (and was inextricably linked to the Santa Rita Candle House, from 1934, a landmark in the trade of Afro-Brazilian products). The search for documents and objects proving the existence and activity of these institutions lasted more than a year. “The Church of Our Lady of Remedies, which had fundamental importance for the abolitionist process in the city, was demolished when it was already featured in the first issue of the IPHAN (National Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage) magazine. It simply disappears. These are violent processes that we address here, because when we address the demolition of the Church of Our Lady of Remedies, we are no longer talking about slavery, we are not talking about the colonial period or the Empire, but already about the Republic erasing the memories of slavery,” says Garcez. Ornamental objects salvaged from the temple before its demolition were saved and are on display in the exhibition, including two impressive caryatids (female figures that serve as architectural supports) from the collection of the Museum of Sacred Art.
Black populations continue to be a very strong presence in Liberdade. “Currently, they continue to arrive. They come from Haiti and, above all, from West African countries. This is the case with the Guinea Cultural Center, which shows the contemporary presence of these Black populations arriving in the neighborhood. I think it's a diverse timeline of Black memories,” says Paulo Garcez Marins. Of this contemporary presence, the Jean Jacques Dessalines Occupation is the fastest-growing phenomenon: organized in June 2021 by 80 Haitian refugee families in an abandoned building in Praça Carlos Gomes, in Liberdade, it was evicted by Mayor Ricardo Nunes in 2026. This expropriation process was documented by the exhibition, which followed the struggle of the
refugees.
According to Garcez, the curatorial team chose to approach the history of the neighborhood from the perspective of the institutions that occupied it over time, "including those that are no longer in the neighborhood and were forced to leave due to political movements, basically." This happened in relation to the Germans and the Japanese during World War II, but also with the Brazilian Black Front, perhaps the most surprising revelation of the exhibition. The research conducted by Garcez, Mônica Raisa Schpun, Aline Montenegro Magalhães, Francisco Andrade, and David Ribeiro concluded that the Brazilian Black Front operated where the Casa de Portugal building is located today and left no archives, just like the Italian League, which closed in 2010 and whose presence was also practically erased from history. "These are institutions that, in some way, fulfilled their role, but whose lives were also cut short," explains the curator.
And what was the Brazilian Black Front, about which so little is known? It was a political party created in 1931 to elect representatives who would defend the civil rights of Black people, which at that time had been almost entirely denied since the end of slavery. Initially, the FNB occupied two rooms in a building in Praça da Sé. Later, it moved to a property on Avenida da Liberdade. The headquarters had offices, a beauty salon, a barbershop, a games room, a dental office, and a bar. It also had a party hall, a music theater group, and a voter registration office. "The FNB's voter registration is going very well, everything is in perfect order. When we asked about the number of qualified voters, we were given a map showing that they totaled 4.001 voters as of the 15th of this month," declared the party's general secretary, Isaltino Veiga dos Santos, in an interview at the time.
The FNB maintained its own newspaper, the Jornal da Raça (1933-1937). It advocated education as a path to the emancipation of Black populations and was even recognized as a political party. In 1937, however, with the banning of all political parties by Getúlio Vargas's Estado Novo, it was declared illegal and closed, and the experience was never resumed. Some of the copies of photographs and documents from the FNB displayed in the exhibition were retrieved from virtual archives. "In other words: it is very painful for us to acknowledge this, but the processes of erasing Blackness in the Liberdade neighborhood do not only happen due to demographic movements or migrations. They occur due to State decisions to erase," says Garcez.
Where does the name "Liberty" come from?
There are several popularly accepted theories regarding the adoption of the name Liberdade (Liberty). But two stand out.
The first refers to Dom Pedro I. A significant portion of the population, during his reign, considered him a despot. The people celebrated noisily when a decree was issued on April 7, 1831, celebrating the end of his reign and the date of his abdication. It is said that there were shouts in the streets: "Freedom, Freedom!". It was in this climate that it was decided that Largo da Forca (Gallows Square) would be renamed Largo da Liberdade (Liberty Square), which expressed the popular desire for a new political outlook in Brazil.
The other theory is more mystical and has even generated popular devotion. In 1821, an Imperial soldier, Francisco José das Chagas, nicknamed Chaguinhas, led a revolt for better pay and equal pay between Brazilians and Portuguese, and was sentenced to death. The execution was scheduled for Largo da Forca. However, when Chaguinhas was subjected to the first attempt at hanging, something unique happened: the rope broke. His executioners decided to try a second rope. This one also broke, which astonished the executioners. The population, watching the execution, decided to demand what seemed to be a tradition – the breaking of the rope could signify a direct divine intervention. But the executioners paid no heed, and Chaguinhas was taken to a third rope, which did not break, but the soldier showed vital signs when rescued and ended up being beaten to death. Chaguinhas was Black. It was from this execution that the cult in the Church of Our Lady of Remedies arose, which later led to the creation of the Santa Rita Candle House to meet the demand of the faithful.
SERVICE
Exhibition “Freedom: a plural neighborhood”
July 7, 2026 to January 31, 2027
Ipiranga museum
Address: Rua dos Patriotas, 100
Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 am to 17 pm. Last entry: 16 pm
Temporary exhibition hall – Ipiranga Museum
Free admission (for this exhibition only)
Operating hours: Tuesday to Sunday (including holidays), from 10 am to 17 pm (last entry at 16 pm). Check for more information: museudoipiranga.org.br/visite/
