This paper aims to explore the different significances taken by the figures of the zombie in various social and cultural contexts, especially in Brazilian context, where the word Zumbi is associated to the Black leader of the famous maroon village, the quilombo de Palmares. Object of a myth and expression of Black resistance, the Brazilian Zumbi seems to join together several figures : the memory of death, the ghost, the resistance and the political struggle. By examining the history of Zumbi in Brazil as well as the particular place it occupies within the contemporary Black movement, we seek to understand its various significances and the possible relations between its figure and that of the zombie in various societies marked by the memory of slavery.