Those who knew Sérgio Augusto Queiroz Norte quickly realized: he would be a teacher forever. Before passing the Unesp entrance examination, he taught English at university preparatory courses and put together a complete course, with cassette tapes and mimeographed materials based on Beatles and Rolling Stones songs.
Once admitted, he became a professor in the history department at Unesp in Assis (SP), specializing in the history of social movements, particularly anarchism. One of his passions was the brief anarchist administration of Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, a city he loved and visited several times.
An anarchist, libertarian and advocate of self-management for individuals and society, he lived according to what he preached, even if that meant giving up many things for the sake of the collective.
An omnivorous reader, he kept thousands of books in different languages in his apartment. He collected vinyl records ranging from Racionais MC's to Erik Satie, along with a great deal of rock, jazz, samba and MPB.
He had a magnetic connection with young people and children, whom he always treated as equals, and he adored dogs — an affection duly reciprocated. He influenced generations of students in Assis and comrades at anarchist meetings and conferences in Brazil and various other countries.
Born in Mogi das Cruzes, he moved to Santos while still young, a city he adopted and to which he returned after retiring. Before entering university in São Paulo, he lived in the United States as an exchange student and fell in love with the lysergic counterculture.
He later studied at the Escola de Sociologia e Política de São Paulo, took part in the student movement against the dictatorship, was arbitrarily arrested and tortured following the invasion of PUC-SP in 1977 — the same year he was at Morumbi to see his beloved Corinthians end a 23-year drought.
At Unesp, he served as head of the History Department, supervised dozens of postgraduate theses, and organized and published books and articles. He was awarded the prestigious Fulbright scholarship and spent two years as a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States.
In recent decades, he became involved in the Black movement — his mother, Maria Isabel, was Black — attended the Filhos de Gandhi gatherings in Rio, and frequented candomblé and umbanda terreiros. A skilled orator, he electrified audiences. In one of his last lectures, at the Centro de Cultura Social in São Paulo, he declared that "Brazilian anarchism needs to quilombar itself" in order to thrive.
He respected all religions but followed none, and now rests in the "cosmic soup," an image of primordial energies he often evoked and depicted in his paintings.
A loving father, he was a friend to his children and their friends alike. He became an attentive and much-loved grandfather. Sérgio died on September 12, at the age of 72. He is survived by his former partner Ângela, his children Janaina, Diego and Carolina, and six grandchildren.
