Inspirational Monday: Aminata Touré makes history as Germany's first black female minister
|Published
Durban - Aminata Touré has made history by becoming Germany’s first Black and female minister, according to reports.
The 29-year-old Touré will serve as the Social Affairs, Youth, Family, Seniors, and Equality Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, according to German public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) news.
With this glass ceiling shattering feat, Touré, who is a member of the environmentalist Green party, supposedly aims to make room for more minorities in the country and champion diversity.
According to the history site Black Centre Europe, Touré was born on November 15, 1992, in Neumünster, Germany, to refugees from Mali. Her parents fled the African country during the 1991 coup d'état.
Her formative years were spent living in a refugee settlement until she was five, and she reportedly eventually got German citizenship when she was 12.
No stranger to history-making, Touré is said to have become a state lawmaker in 2017. Two years later, she was elected as the deputy speaker, making her the first Black person to hold this position in any of the country’s 16 states, according to reports.
At a 2019 event attended by former US President Barack Obama in Berlin, Touré reportedly opened up about her childhood experiences of growing up in a refugee camp spent, wondering if voices like hers would ever be able to reach the country’s politics and parliament.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in political science and French from the University of Kiel, according to Black Central Europe.
Seeing Touré, who reportedly says she’s a proud Afro-German (someone with African ancestry and roots but born in Germany), embracing her dual identity and using it to show other Black women that it is possible to achieve your dreams no matter where you come from, is inspiring indeed.
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