Dominique Christina - "For Emmett Till"

Our legacy, too: Muslim women and the civil rights movement by Jamillah Karim

“No one person owns this. This history is a history of thousands of people and we tell hundreds of those stories.”

When I heard former mayor of Atlanta Shirley Franklin speak these sentiments about the civil rights movement on the occasion of the opening of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in my hometown of Atlanta, GA, I could not help but think about the courageous women whose stories are told in my new book Women of the Nation: Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam, co-authored with Dawn Marie-Gibson.

Growing up in a Sunni mosque community in Atlanta, originally a temple in the Nation of Islam, I regularly heard the stories of men and women who converted to Islam to boldly protest racism and advance opportunities for African Americans. Through them, I felt that I had inherited firsthand the legacy of the civil rights movement. Later, however, I learned that the “Black Muslims,” as scholars called them, were not considered part of this movement. While the civil rights movement was marked by aspirations to integrate with whites, the Nation of Islam was labeled separatist because it promoted black pride and independence.

A few scholars, however, have resisted the tendency to write African American Muslims out of the movement. With efforts to see the movement beyond the black church and to include Muslim women among leaders of the civil rights era, womanist religious studies scholar Rosetta Ross devotes a chapter of her book Witnessing and Testifying: Black Women, Religion, and Civil Rights to Clara Muhammad, who contributed significantly to the NOI’s beginnings. Ross writes,

“Although she was not a part of what might be called the ‘mainstream’ Civil Rights Movement, Clara Muhammad’s role as one who helped construct the vehicle that transmitted notions of race pride to the Black masses made her a significant participant in the evolution of the Civil Rights Movement” (142).

It was during an interview with Karen, a former member of the Nation in Queens, New York that I realized that Nation women were not unlike the African American women of the civil rights movement. With a tone of “righteous discontent,” Karen described her dedication to the Nation of Islam but also her protest to some of the Nation practices that confined women. Her simultaneous alliance with and protest to male leaders in the organization immediately reminded me of the position of black Baptist women in the South as portrayed by Evelyn Higginbotham in her book Righteous Discontent.

Quite literally, Nation women were these women before converting. Before the Nation, they had membership or affiliation with the black church, and some were members of civil rights organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). No Nation woman that I met proved this connection to the civil rights movement as remarkably as Ana Karim.

Ana was no ordinary woman in the Nation—or person, for that matter. She was invited by Elijah Muhammad personally to join the organization. A SNCC activist carrying out voter registration work in poor, rural areas near Tuskegee Institute, where she attended college, Ana witnessed grave atrocities against African Americans. “I nearly lost my life,” Ana told me, her words bearing no exaggeration. Some of her peers were shot to death fighting for the rights of others. News of these courageous students made local newspapers that eventually fell into the hands of Elijah Muhammad. Upon his invitation, she sat with Muhammad who tried to convince her to join the Muslims. She initially declined, returned to Tuskegee, and witnessed one of the most horrific acts of inhumanity, perpetrated against a pregnant African American woman.

Elijah Muhammad’s call began to make sense to her: “It’s not that I feared death, but there was so much I wanted to do. I didn’t want to die not having accomplished anything—just die on a back road in some rural county and my body be buried in a cornfield or drowned somewhere in a stream. I didn’t want to die like that, so I left because I thought there was a higher mission, a better opportunity to help my people with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.”

Interviewing Ana was a highlight of my career for I had been chosen to tell the story of this remarkable African American Muslim woman. Ana went on to do extraordinary things in the Nation and in the Sunni community that emerged from the Nation under the leadership of Imam W. D. Mohammed. She rose as a leader of African American Muslims—men and women—because, she says, “I assumed the hardship of the civil rights movement. God prepares you for what’s coming in the future.” Ana proves that no one person or one religion owns this history.

Jamillah Karim is co-author (with Dawn-Marie Gibson) of Women of the Nation: Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam (NYU Press, 2014).

Shared with permission from the author from fromthesquare.org

Words make worlds: Dominique Ashaheed at TEDxMSUDenver

You Wouldn't Want to Be a Suffragist!: A Protest Movement That's Rougher Than You Expected

I randomly came across this book yesterday at our local library while I was searching for some new reads for my daughter.  It is one of the best I've seen in terms of making HERstory fun and keeping kids engaged.

The story has great illustrations and stories within the story of she-roes such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, Mary Wollstonecraft and others. The story line covers the progress of primarily women in the U.S. and the U.K. but also highlights progress of women in other countries throughout.

It was interesting to note how many times women's rights were interrupted by men's wars.

"In the U.S.: 1861-1865: Women stop campaigning to that they can nurse injured troops during the Civil War. They will gratitude--but not the vote."

"The Great War lasted four terrible years, from 1914-1918. This was no time for protests--patriotic duty came first! We women in Britain and the United States called off our suffrage campaigns. Instead, we joined in the war effort, doing all we could to help our countries and our men fighting overseas."

I didn't necessarily believe in the validity of this, but it led to some interesting discussions during and after the book.

We will definitely come back to this one many times and I hope my daughter will also do some posts here based on what she learned.

Written by Fiona Macdonald
Illustrated by David Antram
Order at Amazon.com

A Nuisance is Born

Today in 1819 Juana Manso was baptized in Buenos Aires.

The holy waters were to set her on the path to meekness, but Juana Manso was never meek.

Bucking wide and tide she founded secular schools in Argentina and Uruguay where girls and boys studied together, religion was not a required course and corporal punishment was banned.

She wrote the first textbook on Argentine history plus several other works, among them a novel that derided the hypocrisy of married life.

She founded the first public library in the country’s interior.

She got divorced when divorce did not exist.

The Buenos Aires papers took great pleasure in mocking her.

When she died, the church refused her a tomb.

~Eduardo Galeano, Children of the Days

Day of the African Child - June 16th

In 1976, thousands of black school children took to the streets of Soweto, South Africa. In a march more than half a mile long, they protested the inferior quality of their education and demanded their right to be taught in their own language. Hundreds of young boys and girls were shot down by security forces. In the two weeks of protest that followed, more than a hundred people were killed and more than a thousand were injured.

To honour the memory of those killed and the courage of all those who marched, the Day of the African Child has been celebrated on 16 June every year since 1991, when it was first initiated by the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union).

The Day also draws attention to the lives of African children today. The theme for this year's event is Eliminating Harmful Social and Cultural Practices Affecting Children: Our Collective Responsibility. In their concept note on this year's celebration, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child selected this theme to "call attention to harmful social and cultural practices against children, and highlight the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders." Aims of the Day include:

• highlighting the negative consequences of harmful practices (such as female genital mutilation) on the various rights of children;
• urging the review of existing legislative and policy frameworks and practices at the national level to combat and eliminate harmful practices against children;
• undertaking advocacy with African governments, civil society organizations including faith based organizations, the media, and other role players for greater mobilization for the realization of the rights of children against harmful practices; and
• considering effective strategies for the prevention of harmful practices against children.

THIS YEAR Rallies are being scheduled around the world in conjunction with Day of the African Child and #BringBackOurGirls

JOIN US: June 16th for International Day of the African Child by ORGANIZING marches, vigils and rallies around the world in honor of the Chibok girls. SPREAD THE MESSAGE: Let us use this day to honor the 300 girls that were kidnapped. Let us use this day to tell the world that we will not stop until they are rescued.

For more information, see the Bring Back Our Girls Facebook Page

Sources: UNICEF, ChildFund, dayoftheafricanchild.org

Selected learning materials
Child Trafficking and Sexual ExploitationOne of four modules developed by the Child Labor Research Initiative of the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights (Iowa, USA), this module contains four highly flexible and adaptable lesson plans appropriate for high school students. Teachers can teach a lesson within 1-2 class periods to introduce the subject or fully integrate the materials into the classroom throughout the year.
Our Homes, Our Lives, Ourselves: A Fun Book to Help Young People Get the Issues Right Concerning Women in Human Settlements DevelopmentA booklet intended to help teenagers get an idea what it is like to be a woman. They do this by reading, thinking and investigating the role of women in various ways. The booklet includes a board game ('The Game of Life') and sections on finance, land, information, networking, and the environment.
Study Guide on the Rights of Children & YouthThis guide introduces the main issues, international standards and protection mechanisms to protect and promote the human rights of children and youth.

International treaties on children's rights:

Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)

Simplified version of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1999)

 

Day of the African Child (organisation)

Shared from hrea.org

What is your Dream? #BubblesBeyondBorders

On August 16th, millions of women and girls from around the world will gather together in their local communities for the radical act of naming and claiming their own dreams.

From South Africa to The United States, from Bahrain to Australia - we are planning rallies all over the world, with the goal of having gatherings in every major city.

Join individuals, organisations and activists who will take to the streets on August 16th at 1pm local time to blow bubbles for a powerful purpose – to pledge an action in support of girls and women’s rights and dreams around the world.

• the right to respect
• the right to an innocent childhood
• the right to an education
• the right to express themselves
• the right to independence 
• the right to choose their own partners
• the right to equal pay
• the right to protection under the law
• the right to vote, and participate in government

Bubbles Beyond Borders is a global campaign to support the dreams of women around the world. Please get involved and help us take this to the next level!

To become a team leader in your state or province, contact Bubbles Beyond Borders. 

You can participate NOW by taking a photo of yourself or your daughter, granddaughter, deice and/or friends blowing bubbles with a short written description of your dreams and your location. Post them at Bubbles Beyond Borders.

Please support our work by sharing posts using the hashtag #bubblesbeyondborders and liking the Facebook page. There is also a list of things you can do to help.

Please share this post with every woman you know!