Also known as Ngola Kimbanda ("chief healer"), he attended Liceu Salvador Correia in Luanda and then traveled to Portugal to study medicine at the University of Porto.
Dr. Boavida became a member of the MPLA Directing Committee for external relations, based in Léopoldville, where he also led the Angolan Volunteer Corps for Assistance of Refugees (CVAAR) from 1962 to 1963.
In 1963, he left the Congo after the CVAAR was banned by the Congolese government (a period that also saw a major leadership crisis within the MPLA) and worked in Rabat, Morocco, for three years.
Américo Boavida married Maria da Conceição Deolinda Dias Jerónimo in Lisbon on 21 August 1958.
He had one son with kheira Ikhlasse met in Morocco, Mudumane Diógenes Van-Dúnem Boavida, born 13 October 1965.