Zulia Mena is a remarkable Afro-Colombian community leader and government official who has dedicated her life to the organization of Western Colombian black and rural communities with the goal of achieving social, cultural, and economic justice.

Zulia Mena, Afro-Colombian Trailblazer

Mena was born in the Campo Bonito neighborhood of the Colombian municipality of Quibdo on November 21st, 1965 to a large, humble peasant family. Since, she has called this predominantly black town, located in the rural Choco state, her home. There, Mena graduated from an all-female high school, the Integrated Feminine Institute of Quibdo. She went on to successfully pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in social work with a concentration in social management from the Choco Technical University Diego Luis Cordoba. She obtained a Master’s in territorial and community management from the Inter-American Institute for Social Development (INDES) in Washington, D.C., United States.

Mena’s work as an organizer began in 1982, starting to mobilize rural communities. In 1988, she founded the Organización de Barrios Populares y Comunidades Campesinas de la Costa Pacifica del Choco – an organization that brought together poor and farming communities from the Colombian Pacific Coast. This organization was mainly formed by black families, reaching a total membership of 7,000 families at a point. Their goal is the defense of their territorial, cultural, economic, social, and political rights as a black ethnic group. Most importantly, the organization has provided a new pathway to leadership for Afro-Colombian women through different empowerment events that seek to legitimize their position in society in the eyes of the local and state governments.               To achieve this, their work has ranged from making presence at local city council meetings to holding sit-ins in different state buildings.

Mena was key to the political mobilization of black Colombians that led to the inclusion of black rights in the Colombian constitution reform process of 1991. Due to her work, she was named as the Choco’s Special Commissioner tasked with defining the legal framework for article 55 in the constitution, which established clearly delineated rights for Afro-Colombian communities such as rights to property, identity and cultural protection, and economic and social advancement. This eventually led to the passage and implementation of the 1993 Law 70, or Ley of Negritudes (Law of the Blacks), which officially recognized Afro-Colombian territorial rights.

From 1994 to 1998, Mena served as an elected member of the Colombian House of Representatives, becoming the first person to serve the specially-defined, national Afro-Colombian district. In 2003, she founded the Colombian council of Black Women (COMUN). In 2005, she co-founded the Ethnic Movement of Black Women. During this time, she served her community in different capacities, working as an advisor to local and state elected officials and government boards as well as a Professor at her alma mater.

On October 30th, 2011 Mena was elected as Mayor of Quibdo as a candidate of the progressive Radical Change party. She earned a seven-point margin over her nearest competitor. In her acceptance speech, Mena promised to bring people and participatory democracy to the local political process. “This is not just a personal triumph; this is a triumph for all of us,” she emphasized. Her work as Mayor focused on education, infrastructure, and social equity. In 2015, she was recognized as the second-best Mayor of Colombia, based on polling results. As Mayor, she gained national recognition by bringing-in the advice of nationally-known, high caliber advisers. Her term ended in 2015.

In 2016, Mena was named as Colombia’s Deputy Minister of Culture by then-President Juan Manuel Santos. From early on, she focused on working to eradicate poverty through culture by providing impoverished communities with public libraries, technical schools, and community centers. She served in this role until 2018.

In an interview for a digital documentary, Mena claimed that her passion to help the community originated since an early age, when she started thinking about how to improve the life condition of her own family and other similarly impoverished black families in the Choco state. Her family’s support has also been critical to her work in the community. Her mom pointed to the importance of her education in allowing her and her sisters to have a better future. On the other hand, her dad claimed to fear for her life, stating that “in Choco, those who are trying to help the poor are never safe.”

These fears materialized when, in 2018, the Colombian Attorney General’s office ordered the arrest of Mena on corruption charges. Mena, and members of her administration as Mayor, were accused of violating the Contract Law when wrongly assigning contracts during the planning of the 20th National Games in 2015. Mena was quickly freed, but was banned from being able to run for office for the next ten years.