Documents, manuscripts and texts published in the press by abolitionist Luiz Gama were submitted to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) to obtain recognition as Documentary Heritage of Humanity.  The application for the 2026-2027 notice of the Memory of the World Program was made official on November 26, 2025 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Archives. The result should be revealed at the end of 2027, during the UNESCO General Conference. Related news: Luiz Gama's fight against racism inspires actions, art and research. Milton Santos, 100 years old: black geographer theorized about inequalities. Brazil of the future depends on young black people, shows a UNDP study. A historical figure inscribed in the Book of Heroes and Heroines of the Fatherland, Luiz Gama freed more than 500 enslaved people with his legal work in defense of the Brazilian black population. Born free and sold by his father into slavery, Gama learned to read and write at the age of 17, but was prevented by racial prejudice from graduating in Law. Even so, he attended the course classes as a listener and became a lawyer, a person with the right to act in court. From then on, he stood out in defending the liberation of enslaved black people and granting identity registrations to formerly enslaved people. Defender of freedom Researcher and professor at the Federal University of the State of São Paulo (Unifesp), Lígia Fonseca Ferreira said, in an interview with Agência Brasil, that Luiz Gama also stands out among abolitionists for having experienced slavery. “Everything he wrote and the way he later turned to the release of individuals has a particular perspective, almost on a case-by-case basis, understanding those with whom he dealt,” he added. Lígia Ferreira is a researcher on the trajectory of Luiz Gama and author of the books Com a Palavra, Luiz Gama and Lições de resistance: Artigos de Luiz Gama in the press of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, which bring together texts, letters and poems by the abolitionist. Because he was black, Gama was prevented from attending the course at the Largo do São Francisco Law School, which he had tried to enroll in in 1850. According to the professor, he began practicing in the mid-1860s, after receiving authorization to practice law in the first instance. In recognition of the work he developed, Luiz Gama was honored, in 2015, by the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), with a posthumous title of lawyer and card with professional registration from the institution. Luiz Gama was born free, the son of African Luiza Mahin, who was forcibly brought from the African region currently belonging to Benin. At the age of 10, however, he was sold into slavery in Salvador by his own father, the white Portuguese nobleman Antônio Agostinho Carlos Pinto da Gama, in exchange for money to pay off a debt. The boy was taken to São Paulo, where he experienced slavery. "In his journalistic writings in the first person, in which he talks about origins, he refers to enslaved people not like others, he says my brothers of misfortune. He talks about us", added Lígia Fonseca Ferreira.  It was only at the age of 18 that Gama was able to prove that he had the right to freedom and left captivity. Documentary heritage The title of the candidacy presented to UNESCO is Black Presence in the Archive: Luiz Gama, articulator of freedom (1830-1882). The material was organized by the São Paulo State Public Archive (Apesp), responsible for the collection, which has already been registered in the Memory of the World Program by UNESCO's Regional Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean (MoWLAC). Recognition of Luiz Gama by the UNESCO Regional Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean (MoWLAC)  APESP Collection According to the criteria established by the United Nations organization, Brazil was able to register a second application with the international organization, Documentary Collection: Passports of Enslaved, Freed, Free Persons and Repatriated Africans (1821-1889), produced by the Public Archives of the State of Bahia. Among the most important documents in Luiz Gama's collection are the letters of manumission kept in the Public Archives of the State of São Paulo. According to Apesp researcher Marcelo Quintanilha, the material was produced when Gama was a clerk at a police station in São Paulo. According to Quintanilha, the APESP team involved in producing the candidacy dossier took between seven and eight months to gather the documents.  The director of the São Paulo public archive, Thiago Nicodemo, said that, after sending the application, Apesp managed, through artificial intelligence, to give faces to the people that Gama freed. “It is an important issue of reparation, but also of important public scope”, he pointed out. “It’s as if we were giving them back their status as people.” Creativity in the fight Even though he was free and literate, Gama had difficulty finding a job because he was black and formerly enslaved in Brazil in the 19th century. He ended up accepting a position in the so-called police force, first as a doorman at the police station and, later, as a clerk and amanuensis, a role given to the person who writes documents by hand. "A young, freed slave like him, despite being literate, didn't have a job. So, he joined the police force and earned very little", said Marcelo Quintanilha. It was in this position, considered trustworthy, that his fight in favor of abolitionism gained strength. With access to the passports of enslaved black people, Gama was able to verify that many of them were Africans brought illegally to Brazil. At the time, the trafficking of enslaved people had already been prohibited. "When the owner of the enslaved people came to ask for the passport [at the police station], he noticed that the enslaved person was very young and didn't even speak Portuguese. He asked where [the enslaved person] was from and, then, [Gama understood that] he was an illegal, smuggled slave", he stated.  In these cases, Gama did not hand over the passport and seized the enslaved person, so that they would not remain with the person who illegally called themselves the owner. "As the delegate, his boss, was permissive, these enslaved people ended up becoming freedmen. Then, he started creating enmities, taking [enslaved people] from powerful people", he explained. From this work, the abolitionist began to register these people, and they began to have an identity in the country. This action resulted in his expulsion from the police in 1869.    Registration number of emancipated individuals with description signed by Gama. "I Luiz Gonzaga Pinto da Gama, the amanuensis who wrote it" - APESP Collection According to the researcher, everything is documented in a book written by Luiz Gama, with a list of 123 free Africans. The book is one of the important documents in the UNESCO candidacy dossier and is part of the Apesp collection. "It was handmade by him. We notice that he put a lot of effort into the description, to tell the story of these slaves. The book is very interesting", he pointed out. Quintanilha highlighted that, to include enslaved people who had been smuggled, Luiz Gama made an interpretation of what the concept of citizen meant. "He was a very intelligent jurist. He created solutions in that conservative society that, until then, no one had considered", he concluded. Netto question Lawyer and researcher of the history of abolitionist Bruno Rodrigues de Lima highlighted another struggle by Luiz Gama that became known as the Netto Question, considered by historians as the largest collective action to liberate enslaved people in the Americas. The process dealt with the freedom of people who were listed as assets of the Portuguese commander Manoel Joaquim Ferreira Netto, one of the richest men in the Empire. By making his will, the slave owner ordered the freeing of 217 enslaved people after his death. Upon learning of this, Gama tried to check whether the order had been fulfilled and had to face a battle with the commander's family, who disputed his assets and did not want to give freedom to enslaved people. Bruno Lima analyzed the documents kept in the Public Archive of the State of São Paulo that revealed Gama's role in the liberation and identification of these enslaved people.  This work contributed to support the candidacy that, in 2025, won registration with the UNESCO Regional Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean (MoWLAC). Now, the research also serves as the basis for the global candidacy. UNESCO's recognition of the documents, according to Lima, represents a lot for Brazil, because it will be the first time that an abolitionist work from the country that had the most enslaved people in the world will be included.  "An abolitionist work is a work of affirmation of freedom, human emancipation and equality between all men and women in a country that most affirmed the opposite of this. Inequality, violence and enslavement, which, in the end, is the most brutal form of exploitation of men and women", he observed. Bruno is the author of Luiz Gama against the Empire: the struggle for the right in the Brazil of Slavery and organizer of the 11 volumes of the Complete Works of Luiz Gama. In 2024, he won the Jabuti Academic Award, Law category, with the volume Direito, 1870-1875, one of the 11 that make up Luiz Gama's Complete Works.   Luiz Gama was a black intellectual in Brazil in the 19th century. - Public Library of Paraná