A member of the tenentist movement, at the age of 25 he stood out during the so-called Revolution of 1930, leading a military column that traveled the northeast along the coast, entering the territories of Alagoas, Pernambuco, Sergipe and Bahia.

He held the following positions: senator of the Republic, federal deputy, military attaché and ambassador of Brazil to the United States, Minister of Justice and Foreign Affairs.

Juracy Magalhães was a lieutenant in the Army when he took over the government, appointed interventor by Getúlio Vargas – a position that promoted him as one of the articulators of the coup that ended, in Brazil, the Old Republic.

Among his accomplishments, he started the construction works of the Rui Barbosa Forum – interrupted by the interventionist Landulfo Alves, who followed him, and finally resumed and concluded by Otávio Mangabeira .

In the place where the home of the tribune Cezar Zama had been, in Praça de Piedade, he built the headquarters of the Public Security Secretariat – the centralizing body of repression, in the totalitarian regime that lived in the country at that time.

On the same day, he made a statement on Rádio Sociedade da Bahia and, on the 11th, he transmitted the position to the military commander in the State, leaving the Government Palace.