Black American and Colombian leaders in Atlanta to develop their trade relations

Nearly 300 Black Colombian and African American entrepreneurs gathered this week at Morehouse College for the U.S.-Colombia Binational Summit for Leaders of African Descent, the first conference focused on promoting business relations between the two communities.

“Even with the difference in nationality or language, Afro-descendants in the Americas have similar cultures and, unfortunately, similar obstacles and challenges,” Luis Gilberto Murillo, Colombia’s first black ambassador to the United States, told the audience. He said black people in both countries face systematic discrimination and second-class treatment.

“By elevating the voices of communities of African descent and promoting inclusive policies, progress can be made toward a future where opportunity and representation for all becomes the norm,” he said.

Government and business leaders from both countries met Tuesday for pre-summit workshops to foster ties between the two communities.

About 30,000 people in metro Atlanta are of Colombian descent, according to U.S. Census data. The country is not a new trading partner of Georgia. In 2013, the state established a trade office in the country. In 2022, Georgia’s exports to Colombia totaled $458.9 million and were the state’s 25th largest export destination, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development.

Wednesday was a day of panels and networking. The event was hosted by the Global Black Economic Forum, a U.S.-based organization focused on advancing economic opportunities for marginalized communities, and produced by Black-owned business consultant Whittley Agency, based in Atlanta.

About 60 percent of participants were Colombian and the rest were American, according to summit organizers. One of the entrepreneurs who came from Colombia was Heidy Parra. She is originally from Chocó, a department or state on Colombia’s Pacific coast that is home to the country’s largest population of African descent.

She owns a cosmetics lab and makes products for other business owners as well as her own beauty line, Báttaua. She said that owning a business as a Afro-Colombians represent “a big challenge” because they have different access to opportunities and higher rates of poverty.

She came at the Atlanta Summit because she hopes to build relationships with African-American cosmetic brands that need a low-cost manufacturer.

Alphonso David, president and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum, said the organization decided to host the summit to break down the barriers and silos that exist within the African diaspora.

“Unless we spend time investing in our own communities, we will never truly achieve economic freedom,” David told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I also wanted to break down the barriers that exist in the minds of some in this country as to what black is and how we define black.”

He decided to host the summit in Atlanta because of its special place in black American history as the birthplace of the civil rights movement. He hopes the summit will lead to new partnerships and collaborations among business leaders and inspire Americans to travel to Colombia and explore opportunities there.

The panels covered a range of topics, including how to empower Black businesses in both countries and the landscape of affirmative action legislation. The speakers ranged from Spanish to English.

Ties between the black business communities of Atlanta and Columbia have been growing for some time. Last fall, a group of black entrepreneurs from the metro area traveled to Colombia for the first trade mission of its kind.

Ricardo Berrís, an Atlanta business owner and chair of the Atlanta Black Chambers Global Opportunities Committee, helped organize the previous trade mission and was also present at Wednesday’s summit.

“As long as there are people who don’t know about the relationships that exist between our diasporic communities, we need events like these to happen,” Berrís said.

For Parra, we hope she returns to Colombia with some partnership commitments.

“I think this is the beginning,” she said.

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