Glória Maria

Glória Maria Matta da Silva (15 August 1949 – 2 February 2023) was a Brazilian journalist, reporter, and television host. With a career that spanned since the 1960s, she is widely considered the first television reporter and TV host of African descent to achieve national success in Brazil.

Early life

Glória Maria grew up in a low-income household in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro; her father worked as a tailor and her mother as a housewife.

She lived with her grandmother after her parents divorced and was told her stories about her great-grandfather, who was hanged in the mountains of Minas Gerais state. Daughter of an enslaved mother, her grandmother was also a beneficiary of the 1871 Law of Free Birth and was thus born free. Her grandmother taught her that she needed to work to be free.

Career

In January 1970, Gloria Maria met with the news directors of Globo TV, and shortly after became the special reporter for Globo Repórter, sometimes co-presenting alongside Sergio Chapelin. Glória Maria was the first black television reporter in Brazil, the first to present the seven o’clock news, and the first to command Fantástico. She had to face many barriers and obstacles to become a successful journalist and reporter.

For one year, Glória Maria worked two jobs, including weekends, before she acquired a position at Globo. She would start her shift at Globo at 8:00 a.m. and would leave at 8:00 p.m. Afterwards, she would attend pre-college prep courses and then go home to sleep for an hour. Glória Maria would wake up in the morning to go to her job at a telephone company.