Congratulations to Aminata Toure who became the first Black member of a German state government. Aminata Toure was sworn in as the Social Affairs, Youth, Family, Seniors, Integration, and Equality Minister in Germany’s northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein in June.
She shared the great news on her Twitter page.
That’s a lot of social responsibility the 29-year old has been vested with, and we are looking forward to the brilliance she will bring to the office.
The event which took place in Kiel marks history as Toure became the first German minister of African origin.
A member of the German Green Party and the daughter of refugees from Mali, Toure told German media that she sees her role as an “honour” given the influx of congratulatory messages she has received from people who say her appointment has inspired them.
This is far from Toure’s political firsts. In 2019, Toure was elected as the state parliament’s deputy speaker, becoming the first Black person and the youngest politician to hold such a position in any of Germany’s 16 states.
Toure was born in 1992 in Neumünster, a medium-sized industrial town in Germany’s far north, where her parents had settled after fleeing from Mali.
She spent the first five years of her life in a refugee shelter, eventually gaining German citizenship when she was 12. She studied Political Science and French Philology at the Christian Albrecht University, Kiel.
In 2012, Toure joined the Green Party’s youth Wing in Kiel and was elected a spokesperson in a year. By her efforts efforts achievements, Toure was appointed into the executive-committee of the party in Schleswig-Holstein. In 2017 she run as a candidate in her Party’s Neumünster state parliamentary constituency. It was this election that took Toure into Parliament through the Green Party’s list.
Toure uses the term Afro-German to refer to herself; it defines her as a person with roots in Africa but at home in Germany, she told DWTV earlier this year.
“I have always had both worlds in me,” she said. “At some point, I didn’t want to have to choose between countries anymore. So I use a term coined by a feminist movement of Black women here in Germany: Afro-German.”
A firm believer in ‘differences unite us’, Toure is the published author of We Can Be More – The Power of Diversity. You can pre-order it here.
We love to see grass-to-grace stories here and look forward to the progressive changes that Aminata Toure is certain to bring. Congratulations, Aminata.
