Margarida became president of the Rural Workers Union of Alagoa Grande, in Paraiba State, in 1973, “during the hardest times of the dictatorship”, said Miriam. “She strongly defended the rights of workers (sugarcane): for access to registration, to receiving salaries in an adequate way, among other rights. With this, she faced the businesspeople of the area, until ten years later, during which she obtained many victories at judicial level for labor rights, she was murdered by a hitman”.