Find out who was Dario Alegria, quilombola and Palmeiras player

The concept of race was never strange to Jurandir Dario Gouveia Damasceno. But he died with the memory still strong of the moment when racism revolted him. More even than all the times the opposing defenders called him a monkey.

“It was at a Palmeiras game in Rio Grande do Sul [no final da década de 1960]. We had just scored the second goal and Inter was ready to kick the ball out. I noticed that our defenders were celebrating, so I delayed my return to our field, preventing the referee from restarting the game. Seeing my trickery, he said: ‘Get out of there, black tramp!’. Those words hurt me a lot,” said Dario Alegria in an interview earlier this year for the official Palmeiras magazine.

He declined to reveal the year of the match and who the referee was.

For the relatives of striker Dario Alegria, who died on October 9th of this year from complications caused by a stroke, at the age of 77, this episode marked the beginning of the end of his passage through alviverde.

The referee was in the same hotel as the squad and the player spent hours waiting for him in the lobby, but he was not found.

“The club directors said some things to him, like to let it go. Dario was indignant and replied: ‘it was because he didn’t curse your mother, so you don’t know what I felt,'” recalls Zelão Portugal , nephew of the tip.

Hours later, at dawn, the referee knocked on the athlete’s bedroom door to apologize.

“He was very worried about it [com questões raciais]. When he stopped playing, he saw the need to take blacks to another level”, completes Zelão.

Upon retiring, the story of Dario Alegria, nickname given to him by the narrator Fiori Gigliotti, became the book “O Leopardo das Alterosas”, written by journalist Aroldo Dayrell.

The attacker created the Black Speech Foundation. In partnership with the Palmares Foundation, it mapped the quilombos that already existed in Minas Gerais and were not proven. Validated 83. Five only in the area of ​​Paracatu, his hometown.

Grandson of slaves and son of a prospector, he spent part of his childhood in the Buriti dos Costa quilombo, where his father, Luis Gouveia Damasceno, was born.

“Since he was young, Dario was engaged in this fight. Our father was a musician, and Paracatu was divided between whites and blacks. There was the white club, in which blacks were chased away. His father then created a club called Saca-Rolha, so that blacks could attend it and go to parties. Gradually, whites also started to go too,” says Luis Gouveia Damasceno Filho, brother of Dario and musician who performs with the stage name of Luig Strada.

An accordion player who played for Juscelino Kubitschek and with Luiz Gonzaga, Luis Sr. asked black people to dress well for balls at Saca-Rolha, as a way to increase their self-esteem.

Darius shouldn’t even have been a football player. With the death of the parent, he assumed the support of the family when he was 14 years old. In order to be able to work for a company that was building a road on the way from Minas Gerais to the recently opened Brasília, he convinced the Paracatu registry office to give him a document attesting that he was 18 years old.

In the new federal capital, he started working on the company’s team. It stood out for being very fast. When the city turned one year old, there was a friendly between Santos against a local match. Pelé did not play because he was injured, but arrived by helicopter. Darius was cast and caught the eye.

“I wasn’t a star, but I was fast and I knew how to finish,” he said later.

Invited by Augusto, defender of the Brazilian team in the 1950 World Cup, he went to Vasco da Gama. He didn’t want to because he had to earn a salary to help his family, but the former player promised him that while he was auditioning in Rio, he would help his mother and brothers in Paracatu.

Dario was approved, but on an off-duty visit to Belo Horizonte, he received an offer from América-MG for a salary much higher than the daily allowance paid by Vasco. He jumped over the wall of São Januário’s barracks and fled. The Rio club complained to the CBD (Brazilian Sports Confederation, the precursor of the CBF) and the striker was suspended for six months. It didn’t make a big difference because in one of his first training sessions at the new club, he fractured his tibia.

He arrived at Palmeiras in 1965 and was part of what became known as the “First Academy”, with Dudu, Djalma Dias and Ademir da Guia. He won the Rio-São Paulo that year, the Paulista in 1966 and the Brazilian in 1967. For Fluminense, he would be champion of Rio de Janeiro in 1969. For América-MG, he won the Mineiro in 1971.

He wore the Brazilian national team’s shirt in 1965, at the opening of Mineirão. The alviverde team represented CBD in a friendly against Uruguay.

“Palmeiras gave me work, food, the chance to improve my family’s life and the honor of playing for the national team,” he said.

“He was the leader of the family. Because of him, the brothers were able to study and graduate. He helped everyone”, confirms brother Luis.

Dario Alegria was the second cousin of Joaquim Barbosa, who was a minister and president of the Federal Supreme Court.

His family members recognize that the work of the Fala Negra Foundation is currently more difficult due to lack of funds and the difficulty of obtaining support from federal government agencies. But the question of quilombola lands was one of the great concerns of the Palmeiras attacker until his death.

“He stopped being the sports secretary in Paracatu because there was a demarcation of quilombola land that passed through the farm of the mayor at the time. He didn’t accept that”, recalls Zelão.