Marielle Franco (27 July 1979 – 14 March 2018) was shot to death, along with her driver, Anderson Pedro Gomes, on March 14 of this year, in her home district, where she served as a city councillor of the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro for the Socialism and Liberty Party from January 2017 until her death. She had just delivered a speech against police brutality and extrajudicial killings. She died of 3 shots to the head, one to the neck. The bullets used to kill them were Federal bullets. They tried to concoct a story that they had been stolen from a post office facility where they had been stored, but the Post Office would not cooperate with the Federal Government’s false story.

Marielle has been working tirelessly and cheerfully for years for the rights of the poor, ever since a close friend was killed by a stray bullet in 2000. She rose out of the favelas; and went to college and university on scholarships as a single mother. She had a daughter in 1998. She wrote her master’s thesis on taking back the favelas from the gangs. In 2007, she entered politics by working for State Representative Marcelo Freixo. She identified as bi-sexual. On the City Council, she had fought against gender violence and  tried to create a day of lesbian visibility in August 2017. It failed 19-17. She was planning on marrying her long-term partner, Mônica Tereza Benício, in September 2019.

Marielle was politically savvy and knew she needed well placed friends. She became friends with Glenn Greenwald. He listed what he referred to as the “most important subjects to cover” regarding Franco’s assassination stating:
“Her relentless and brave activism against the most lawless police battalions, her opposition to military intervention, and, most threateningly of all, her growing power as a black, gay woman from the favela seeking not to join Brazil’s power structure, but to subvert it.”

The Federal Police sadly proved the truth of Marielle’s last speech by so immediately assassinating her and her driver. But as Medgar Evers said, “You can kill a man, but you cannot kill an idea.” Sadly, in the era of Trump, we still need to say it: Women are equal.

Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 16″ stretched canvas.

Price: $120 plus postage.

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit or debit cards are accepted.