The Black Culture Center of Maranhão (CCN / MA) was founded on September 19, 1979 by a group of black people engaged in the political and cultural militancy of the struggles for rights and spaces of the black population in the state. The institution is constituted as a non-profit civil society organization, whose main mission is "political and cultural and religious awareness to rescue the ethnic cultural identity and self-esteem of the black people, enabling actions that contribute to the promotion of their organization in search of of citizenship, combating all forms of racism and promoting the rights of the black population in Maranhão. "

Currently the institution has a vast team of professionals related to social assistance, education, advocacy, psychology, anthropology, dances, music, among others. This allows the actions developed to cover several areas. Since 1994, the group has been building a historic building between the neighborhoods of Barés and João Paulo, in the city of São Luís, capital of the state of Maranhão, where a gunpowder deposit operated in the middle of the 17th century and later a market of enslaved in the eighteenth century.

The CCN / MA carries out activities from several fronts, especially in the area of ​​training and education in schools and universities in the public and private network of São Luís. In addition to training activities within formal education, the CCN / MA also promotes seminars, lectures and meetings. Highlighting the organization of the Black Week in Maranhão, which takes place on May 13, symbolic date for the National Day of Denunciation Against Racism.

The event is the "discussion of a theme related to the racial question, whether in the aspects of the historiography of the black population, or in the political and social aspects of the current reality, through lectures, seminars, theatrical presentation among others, in public schools of the capital and interior of the state ".

All the activities developed by the CCN / MA aim to create spaces of struggle and respect for cultural and racial diversity. Despite its approximately 36 years of existence, there is still much to change in social, educational, and political structures on the way to the historic redress of black populations in Brazil.