“El No Murio, El Se Multiplico!” Hugo Chávez : The Leadership and the Legacy on Race

“Chávez, Chávez, Chávez: Chávez no murio, se multiplico!” was the chant outside the National Assembly building after several days of mourning the death of the first President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This study investigates the leadership of Hugo Chávez and his legacy on race as seen through the eyes and experiences of selected interviewees and his legacy on race. The interviewees were selected based on familiarity with the person and policies of the leadership of Hugo Chávez and his legacy on race. Unfortunately, not much has been written about this aspect of Hugo Chávez despite the myriad attempts to explain his popularity with the Venezuelan people up to the time of his death. It is expected that, as a result of this research, a clearer picture of Hugo Chávez will emerge. The resulting profile of Hugo Chávez focuses on him as a person of power as well as of color—of African and Indigenous descent—who was able to free himself from a colonial mindset (and its oftentimes accompanying internalized racism) and thereby gain the attention of oppressed peoples across the planet who sided with him as he used his power to challenge neoliberalism, the U.S. government, and those who wield power on neoliberalism’s behalf inside Venezuela. This research serves as important infrastructure for understanding Hugo’s race-conscious leadership in resistance to internalized racism and European domination. This dissertation is accompanied by an MP4 author introduction, a PDF Dissertation Supplement and 4 participant files : 1 MP3 audio and 3 MP4 videos. This Dissertation is available in open access at AURA: Antioch University Repository & Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd