We are “very happy because we made a big change,” says Euclides Rengifo, an Afro-Colombian who has lived in the United States for eight years. Not only did the South American country elect its first Black Vice President Francia Márquez, it elected former guerilla warrior Gustavo Petro as its president.

This was the third time that Petro had run for president. “Petro has proposed pension, tax, health and agricultural reforms and changes to how Colombia fights drug cartels and other armed groups. But his coalition has only about 15% of the seats in Congress,” reports the Associated Press.

In his first 100 days in office, Petro says, he aims to implement an emergency plan against hunger, introduce a “living income” for mothers who are heads of households and forgive the student loans of 10,000 people. Like US President Biden, Petro made a historic choice in selecting Márquez as his running mate.

As a child she wanted to marry a White man reports the newspaper El Pais (English: The Country).  She had her first child when she was 16. With two children and a disappearing father, she defended her land and found herself the target of death threats. She was quoted as saying, “They say that men don’t have abortions, but I say they do. In Colombia they have an abortion every time they walk out on their children. They are aborting their parental responsibility!” she begins.

The former housekeeper eventually studied law.  “I took seven years; not because I didn’t have the ability, it was because I didn’t have the resources,” she said. In 2018, she won the Goldman Environmental Prize.

Like Africans at home and abroad, she has been hit with the international White slur of being called King Kong. Rengifo, who worked as a poll worker at the Colombian Embassy in Washington, DC for Colombians living in the United States, compared the challenges the duo faces to those faced by former US President Barack Hussein Obama.

For Rengifo, victory for one big challenge has already come. “My daughter can see the TV” and see herself and say “Yes, we can!” he told Port of Harlem. They take office as president and vice president on August 7.