The aim of this book is to understand and spread knowledge of the historical processes that allow the development of instruments to combat prejudice and discrimination. The book also intends to look clearly, intelligently and respectfully at African communities in Portugal, highlighting their achievements and contribution to the society in which they are integrated today.

The book is published by the High Commission for Migration, which has also published a work by the same author examining the historical impact of Africans on the city of Lisbon through a series of routes around the city.

The book is composed of five chapters:

1. The settlement of Africans in Portugal and the construction and reinforcement of anti-black prejudice (15th-20th centuries)
2. Models and strategies of integration of Africans into Portuguese society (15th-19th centuries)
3. The ‘African-Portuguese’: Reinvention of a new identity (15th-19th centuries), discussing the integration of mixed-race people
4. Colonial legitimation, the colonial war and the reinforcement of racism
5. Syncretisms and legacies in the long term of history, portraying the changes in the way black people are viewed in Portugal post-1974 by examining festivities, historical memory and reinvention of Africanity