Harvard University, in the United States, announced that it will award the 2025 WEB Du Bois Medal to the Brazilian activist, a city councilor who was murdered in March 2018. The ceremony will be held this Tuesday (4). Marielle will be the first Brazilian public figure – and only the second Latin American – to receive the institution’s highest distinction in the field of African and Afro-American Studies. The other was the vice president of Colombia, Francia Márquez, in 2024.
The medal recognizes trajectories that strengthen the intellectual and cultural legacy of African and Afro-descendant populations in the world. Other 2025 honorees include James E. Clyburn, Misty Copeland, Brittney Griner, George E. Johnson, Spike Lee and Amy Sherald.
The American WEB Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, author, editor and activist, considered the most important black leader of protests in the United States during the first half of the 20th Century. He participated in the creation of the civil rights movement in the country. The collection of essays written by him, The Souls of Black People (1903), is a landmark in African-American literature.
Marielle Franco became one of the main voices in the fight against state violence and in defense of human rights in Brazil. Born and raised in Complexo da Maré, in Rio de Janeiro, she dedicated her life to the agendas of black women, LGBTQIA+ populations and the peripheries. In 2016, she was elected councilor in Rio de Janeiro and chaired the Commission for the Defense of Human Rights and Citizenship.
In 2018, Harvard’s Afro-Latin American Research Institute (ALARI) had invited Marielle to a symposium. Six weeks before the event and one day after denouncing police violence in the community where she was born, she was murdered along with her driver Anderson Gomes.
“It was because women like her challenged and transformed power structures, standing up to racism, sexism and LGBTQIA+phobia, that her precious life was taken. But her killers failed. Marielle was with us at ALARI, and never left,” said Alejandro de la Fuente, founding director of ALARI. “Our field, that of Afro-Latin American Studies, is fueled by the struggles for justice and inclusion, nurtured by women like Marielle. You cannot kill that. Marielle Franco is life. And life cannot be killed”, he added.
The tribute recognizes in Marielle the intersection between activism, science and intellectual production in the Afro-diasporic field. ALARI is the first academic institution in the United States dedicated to the study of Afro-descendant populations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Executors and principals
Former police officers Ronnie Lessa and Élcio de Queiroz were convicted of Marielle’s murder in October 2024. Lessa received a sentence of 78 years, 9 months and 30 days in prison for machine-gunning the victims, and Élcio, who was driving the car when Ronnie fired, was sentenced to 59 years, 8 months and 10 days. Both were guilty of double homicide, against Marielle and Anderson, and attempted murder against journalist Fernanda Chaves, who was in the car at the time, but was not hit.
The investigations indicated that the brothers Domingos and Chiquinho Brazão ordered the murder of the councilor to hired killers and that the former head of the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro, Rivaldo Barbosa, planned the act, in addition to having hindered the investigation, led by himself, before the case was elevated to the federal level.
The three are responding to a criminal case that is being processed in the STF and has the minister as rapporteur. The magistrate concluded the hearings with witnesses, defense and prosecution in 2024. However, the case remains in the investigation phase and there is still no scheduled date for the trial of the principals and the mentor.
*With information from Agência Brasil
Published by Nícolas Robert
