Abdias do Nascimento (March 14, 1914 – May 23, 2011) was a prominent African Brazilian scholar, artist, and politician. Also a poet, dramatist, and Pan-African activist, Nascimento created the Black Experimental Theater (1944) and the Black Arts Museum (1950), organized the National Convention of Brazilian Blacks (1946), the First Congress of Brazilian Blacks (1950), and the Third Congress of Black Culture in the Americas (1982). Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Buffalo, he was the first Afro-Brazilian member of Congress to champion black people's human and civil rights in the National Legislature, where in 1983 he presented the first Brazilian proposals for affirmative action legislation. He served as Rio de Janeiro State Secretary for the Defense and Promotion of Afro-Brazilian People and Secretary of Human Rights and Citizenship. While working as curator of the Black Arts Museum project, he began developing his own creative work (painting), and from 1968 on, he exhibited widely in the U.S., Brazil and abroad. He received national and international honors for his work, including UNESCO's special Toussaint Louverture Award for contribution to the fight against racism, granted to him and to poet Aimé Césaire in 2004. He was officially nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. Early life Born in Franca, São Paulo state, Nascimento attended public school as a child and joined the military in 1929. In the 1930s Nascimento was a member of the Brazilian Integralist Action, a fascist party. He received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Rio de Janeiro in 1938, and graduate degrees from the Higher Institute of Brazilian Studies (1957) and the Oceanography Institute (1961). Black Experimental Theater From 1939 to 1941, Nascimento traveled throughout South America with a group of poets who called themselves the "Santa Hermandad Orquidea", or "Holy Brotherhood of the Orchid." At the Municipal Theater of Lima, Peru, they attended a performance of Eugene O'Neill's play The Emperor Jones with a blackfaced white actor in the leading role. Then and there, he decided to create a black theater in Brazil to fight against racism. In Argentina, Nascimento spent a year with the "Teatro del Pueblo" (People's Theater) in Buenos Aires, where he learned the technical and performance aspects of theater. Returning to São Paulo, he was imprisoned, having been convicted in absentia by the civilian court for the same incident of resisting racial discrimination for which he had been excluded from