Anielle Franco, Brazil’s racial equality Minister, never planned to be a politician. That was her sister’s thing. Five years older than Anielle, Marielle was passionate, decisive, and a born activist. In her campaigning for Rio de Janeiro’s Black and LGBTQ communities, she would “act first and worry later,” Franco recalls. “I was more timid. Because I had my sister there as a leader, I stayed on the sidelines.”
That changed in March 2018. A year after taking a seat on Rio’s city council, Marielle was assassinated—in retaliation, her colleagues believe, for her activism against police violence, racism, and corruption. The search for justice thrust Anielle, then 33, into the national spotlight. A competitive
