Elizabeth Teixeira

Born Feb 13, 1925 · Sapé, Paraíba, Brazil

Elizabeth Altino Teixeira (Sapé, February 13, 1925) is a Brazilian rural worker and activist. She confronted a family of small landowners when she married João Pedro Teixeira, a black landless worker. Alongside him, she campaigned in the Peasant Leagues of Paraíba. In 1962, after her husband was murdered, she took over the leadership of the organization in the municipality of Sapé. She was arrested on several occasions. On one of her trips home, she discovered that her eldest daughter, Marluce, had committed suicide, believing that her mother had suffered the same fate as her father. With the military coup of 1964, she had to go underground, adopting the name Marta Maria Costa and taking refuge in São Rafael (Rio Grande do Norte), with her son Carlos. She remained underground until 1981, when she was found by filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho, who resumed filming of his documentary ‘Twenty Years Later’. She went to live in João Pessoa, in a house that Coutinho gave her.