An influent Afro-Brazilian thinker, he was instrumental on the development of a native sociological framework, criticizing the use of European paradigms for studying the Brazilian society, especially race relations and the condition of the Black people in Brazil.

[1] He was also a leading figure in organization theory[2][3] In 1956, Pitirim Sorokin, analyzing the situation of sociology in the second half of the 20th century, included Guerreiro Ramos among the authors who most contributed to the progress of the discipline.

There, he worked at the newspaper O Imparcial, wrote poetry (collected in the book O Drama de ser Dois) and participated in the youth wing of the Brazilian Integralist Action.

When he was expelled from the country by the military dictatorship, he was invited to teach at the University of Southern California (USC) from 1966 onwards, settling in the United States.

In 1980, back in Brazil without breaking his ties with the USC, he teaches at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), where he organizes a master's degree in Governmental Planning, based on his theory of the delimitation of social systems.