James N. Green’s Academy project traces the emergence and impact of student-led mobilization efforts in the years preceding the fall of the Brazilian dictatorship. Centered in São Paolo between 1976 and 1978, these efforts went beyond the prior generation’s opposition to the dictatorship and served as an incubator for budding social movements focused on issues of personal identity and their relationship to politics and social change. By bringing formerly secondary considerations to the forefront of political struggle, these student mobilizations further energized the labor strikes of 1979-80, which, in turn, challenged the dictatorshop economically and enabled the rise of new political leadership, including future President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.