The University of Brasilia's affirmative action process is about to enter a crucial week. Students who have identified themselves as Afro-Brazilian must pose for a photograph that will be evaluated by a secret committee. This panel will try to determine whether students look "black enough" to qualify for the quota system.

To participate in the University of Brasilia's quota program, applicants must do something most have never been required to do - identify themselves as black.

Iolanda dos Santos and her family moved to Brasilia from a poor region of northeast Brazil. She is currently undecided whether or not she should apply to the university under the racial quota system.

Brazil has long presented itself as a "racial democracy" but deep disparities in income, education and employment have finally prompted a campaign for equal treatment for Afro-Brazilians. Brazil in Black and White captures a unique moment as a nation looks in the mirror.

Seventeen-year-old Josie de Souza is one of almost 23,000 students taking this year's entrance exam for the University of Brasilia. She hopes to be one of those admitted under its new racial quota system.

by Edward Telles. In 2001, on the heels of the United Nations Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa, several Brazilian institutions established race-based affirmative action for the first time ever in that country.

glossary, suggested reading and Web sites

This is a list of important themes and video segments that can be used in classroom discussions of Brazil in Black and White.