Rosary Festival Serro

Festa de Nossa Senhora do Rosario dos Homens Pretos do Serro is a July devotion in the colonial Minas Gerais mining town of Serro, rooted in a Black Catholic brotherhood founded by enslaved and freed miners in the eighteenth century. Its centerpiece, the Reinado, crowns a Black King and Queen of Congo alongside congado drumming and dance processions through the town's streets.

Serro, a colonial diamond-district town in the mountains of Minas Gerais, holds its Festa de Nossa Senhora do Rosario dos Homens Pretos each July, a devotion tracing to the Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosario, a lay Black Catholic brotherhood formed during the eighteenth-century mining boom by enslaved and freed Black miners who were largely excluded from white confraternities.