Anita Wright Torres honors her father’s legacy of justice as a Presbyterian mission worker in Brazil

From 1964 to 1985, Brazil was ruled by a military dictatorship, sometimes referred to as the Fifth Brazilian Republic. Estimates suggest at least 434 political dissidents were murdered or “disappeared” during the dictatorship, and at least 20,000 others were tortured. Despite these human rights atrocities, the regime enjoyed the support of the United States government. But others worked tirelessly to oppose the government’s horrific actions, including a Presbyterian mission worker from the United States, the Rev. James Nelson Wright.

Anita Wright Torres was a teenager in 1975, when her father stood alongside a rabbi and the Archbishop of São Paulo in front of a crowd of more than 8,000 at the city’s central cathedral. The gathering was an interreligious and ecumenical cry for justice, speaking out against the murder of Jewish journalist Vladimir Herzog at the hands of the Brazilian government. Brazilian military forces surrounded the gathering from all sides in a flagrant display of power and intimidation.

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Fifty years later, on Oct. 25, 2025, Wright Torres — now a ruling elder in the United Presbyterian Church in Brazil — stood in the same place, in front of another crowd, to represent her father and honor the courageous actions he and his clergy colleagues took decades ago.

“It’s quite a responsibility, but it's at the same time an honor to do it in his name — to be recognized as capable of being his voice, 50 years later,” Wright Torres said. 

Wright Torres describes herself as a third-generation Presbyterian missionary, though she and her four siblings were born and raised in Brazil. Her grandparents came to Brazil in the 1920s as Presbyterian missionaries from the United States. Her father attended high school in Brazil but returned to the United States for college — which Wright Torres says was the custom for children of missionaries back then.

After attending what is now University of the Ozarks in Arkansas, Wright went on to Princeton Theological Seminary, where he met his wife, who was pursuing a degree in Christian education. Together they returned to Brazil to live out their careers as mission workers themselves.

Wright served in prominent leadership roles in the church, including as general secretary for the United Presbyterian Church of Brazil from 1968 to 1986. At the same time, he was also collaborating with the archbishop and other religious leaders to oppose and undermine Brazil’s military dictatorship, both publicly and in secret. He took a position working in the archbishop’s human rights office.

He was known for his role in helping the archdiocese of São Paulo organize and publish “Brasil Nunca Mais,” a book that used verbatim transcripts of the government’s own records to divulge its use of torture and murder against dissidents. Wright Torres said they were ultimately able to copy all 7,000 records of prisoners.

The book was written entirely in secret over a period of five years, and Wright Torres said her father was responsible for smuggling out evidence and smuggling in funding for the effort, disguised by his travels to meet international church partners in Geneva. The book was published and distributed by the Catholic Church, and by the time the government became aware of its existence, it was already selling. Wright Torres said it hit the No. 1 spot on the bestseller's list for 91 weeks in a row.

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Wright’s participation in the denunciation of the government’s murder of journalist and Communist Party member Vladimir Herzog was arguably his most public show of resistance. At the time, the government listed Herzog’s death as a suicide; it would be 37 years before his death certificate was revised to reflect the truth.

Wright Torres said her father didn’t hide the truth of his activities or the government’s oppressive regime from his children, though he did couple these hard truths with reassurance that their own family would be OK.

For Wright, the call to oppose the government’s violence and unjust actions was a matter of faith, but it was also personal. Wright’s younger brother, Paul, was one of those “disappeared” by the regime. 

Wright Torres carries the same understanding that the commitment to justice and human rights is a matter of Christian faith and honoring her family.

“I had him as an example of a man of faith, a man of courage, and that would do what he did … in the search for justice,” Wright Torres said. “Not only for what was done with his brother, but with all the people that were suffering under the dictatorship. And that made me continue to be involved in in all of it also as a participant of human rights organizations here in Brazil.”

Wright Torres was previously the vice president of the National Council of Churches and currently serves as president of another ecumenical organization that funds social projects in northeastern Brazil. She has also followed in her father’s footsteps in terms of denominational leadership. In 2011, she became the first woman elected as moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Brazil, a denomination formed in 1978 in support of women’s ordination. In 2017, she became the first moderator in the denomination’s history to be elected twice.

Wright's legacy of faithful ministry and commitment to justice looms large, and not just for his own children. When Wright died in 1999, the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick — then the Stated Clerk of the PC(USA)’s General Assembly — said, “There’s probably no mission worker in the Presbyterian Church in this century that did more for the cause of justice than Jim. He was just a fervent advocate for social justice, in Brazil and around the world.”

Wright Torres said the recent shifts in the PC(USA)’s approach to global engagement have made her sad and concerned. Her own denomination has been a longtime partner of the PC(USA)’s — the only denomination in Brazil that currently maintains such a partnership. She said she wants such international partnerships to remain a priority for the church, and that remembering the history of the relationships between Presbyterians in each country is crucial.

“I feel that many people don’t know the story of the missionaries who gave their lives here in Brazil, so maybe it’s time for a revival of these stories.”

Whatever the future holds, Wright Torres will continue to keep the memory of her father and his own missionary parents alive. She has followed in his footsteps for decades even as she has forged her own ministry path. Now she has stood where he stood in witness and remembrance of the world-changing impact of bold and courageous faith.