This dissertation aims to understand how the stigma of place and racism impact the lives of residents of the Bairro São Sebastião housing complex, built by the Catholic organization Cruzada São Sebastião in the Leblon neighborhood in 1955. The policies of favela removal in the South Zone in the 1960s and 1970s resulted in a process of social-racial segregation in the urban space of Rio de Janeiro, since the residents of these favelas, who were mostly black, were removed to distant neighborhoods in the capital. However, the unique and pioneering experience of the housing complex under study received part of the residents of the former Praia do Pinto slum, which was located next to the complex. Today, the housing complex is commonly known as Cruzada São Sebastião and still is a place composed mostly of black people in one of the most whitened neighborhoods in the city and with one of the most expensive square meters in the country. Through interviews with the residents and documentary research of newspaper reports it was possible to obtain relevant data on how racism impacts the residents of Cruzada São Sebastião, as well as how they organize themselves to face the forms of prejudice imposed on them.