Departures of note

Zélia Amador de Deus was a Brazilian university professor, researcher, artist, and activist who became one of the principal references of the Black movement and the anti-racist struggle in the Amazon region. Born on a farm on Marajó Island to a teenage mother who worked as a maid, she was raised by her grandparents in Belém and rose from a childhood of hardship through public education to earn a doctorate in social sciences with an emphasis on anthropology from the Federal University of Pará (UFPA).

She taught at UFPA from 1978, serving as director of the Centre for Letters and Arts and as vice-rector from 1993 to 1997, becoming the first Black woman vice-rector in Brazil. In 1980 she co-founded the Centre for Studies and Defence of Black People in Pará (CEDENPA), which became a reference in defending the rights of the Black population and in securing recognition and titling of quilombola lands. She also helped create the Afro-Amazonian Study Group (GEAM) and the Centre for Afro-Brazilian Studies (NEAB), and was president of the Brazilian Association of Black Researchers (ABPN).

Amador was a tireless advocate for affirmative action, participating in the mobilization that led to racial quotas in Brazilian public universities and representing Brazil at the 2001 UN World Conference against Racism in Durban. She was made professor emerita of UFPA in 2019 and received the BrazilFoundation Human Rights Award in 2021. She died in Pará at age 74.