Vaughan Gething is set this week to become the first Black man to lead the country of Wales, a country of 3.1 million people between England and Northern Ireland. Wales is a semi-autonomous government.

He expects to be confirmed as first minister this week following an election he won against Education Minister Jeremy Miles. Gething is his country’s current economy minister and a member of the Welsh Labour Party.

The election followed Mark Drakeford’s decision to step down last December. Drakeford said he would step down from the role after five years in office, which aligns with his plans.

Gething, 50, won 51.7 percent of the vote on Saturday. The new leader promised to meet the deep challenges facing Wales, including a cost-of-living crisis, angry farmers, and sluggish healthcare and education systems.

Many famous actors, singers, writers, poets, musicians, and artists were born in or came from Wales, including Anthony Hopkins, Shirley Bassey, and Tom Jones.

His election represents a continuing change for the European continent where most white ancestry live.

In Wales, Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean, or Africans comprise only 28,000 people.

Although the Black population is small, they have worked in the coal mines, which at one time was Wale’s economic engine.

In the 1940 movie “The Proud Valley,” set in Wales, Paul Robeson played a miner named David.

One of his coworkers complained that David was a Black man. The coworker answered back, “We are all Black down here.” A 2020 feature film about Wales also discussed the role of Black miners.

Elsewhere, changes in top leadership are occurring rapidly.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has Indian heritage and is Britain’s first Hindu leader.

Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf comes from a Pakistani Muslim family. 

Northern Ireland’s regional administration is jointly led by two women, Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly.

Gething, son of a Welsh father and a Zambian mother said his election on Saturday as the first Black leader of the governing Welsh Labour Party marked a moment when “we turn the page in the book of our nation’s history, a history that we write together.”

He attended Aberystwyth and Cardiff universities in Wales, worked as a trade union lawyer with Thompsons Solicitors, and became the first Black president of the Wales Trades Union Congress and the Wales National Union of Students.

According to the Guardian newspaper, he was inspired by stories of Nelson Mandela to join the Labour Party when he was 17 years old.

But racism persists. Students of color were called ‘monkeys’ and attacked with rocks in Wales’ schools, according to the publication Wales Online.

Gething suffered racism personally.

In Monmouthshire, his family experienced racism when an employer withdrew a job offer made to Gething’s father upon seeing the rest of his family. Speaking of the incident, Gething shared: “They said, ‘Come back with your family, and we’ll sign everything up,’ but he walked in with my mother and a trail of brown boys, and the job offer got withdrawn.” His father eventually found work in Dorset, England, where Gething grew up.

Now, he will soon lead the country.