João Dantas: uma biografia

Abstract

The life of lawyer and journalist João Dantas deserves to be told. Anyone who thinks that this only happened because he killed President João Pessoa should spend a few hours reading the pages of this book and learn a little more about his story. A respected person in the administrative and economic life of Paraíba told me, one July of last year, that a teacher had asked him if the homage that had been paid to the murdered man at the A Glória bakery was a paid hitman. Another time, a trusted driver of an executive from a family with a tradition in Paraíba politics was surprised when I told him that José Pereira, from Princesa, was not a bandit, but rather a congressman and leader of a rebellion to overthrow the João Pessoa government. Today, after the research I have been doing on the Old Republic in this state, I am fully convinced that the official story told to the people is a huge farce. The victors make a point of tarnishing the past of the vanquished. This biography is yet another contribution, albeit modest, to recover what really happened. Despite certain difficulties in gathering data for this book, the facts are nevertheless alive in the yellowed pages of volumes kept in the silence and semi-darkness of public libraries. We bring to light so that new generations can learn in the most transparent way about some episodes, many of which shame the memory of certain “sacred cows” of our politics.