On Friday, July 13th CAIR-Columbus Public Affairs Coordinator Usjid Hameed was honored alongside four other young activists as a “Hidden Hero” by the Andrew Goodman Foundation (AGF) for his work around social justice and voter registration.
The AGF, named after one of the civil rights activists killed in the Freedom Summer of 1964 for registering African-Americans to vote, focuses on engaging young people in the political process. Usjid currently serves a Puffin Democracy Fellow with the Foundation and previously served as a Vote Everywhere Ambassador while he was an undergraduate at Towson University. His Expanding the Ballot project seeks to provide language assistance to voters on Election Day who are not proficient in English in Franklin County.
Prior to the ceremony, Usjid took part in a panel titled “Leadership in Defense of Our Democracy” with Shaun King, Activist and Journalist, Dr. Liz Theoharis, Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, and Abree Dominguez, University of San Francisco Alumna and Hidden Hero.
“I was incredibly honored to receive the award,” Usjid said after the ceremony. “I feel so privileged to stand on Andy’s shoulders. This award was only made possible through the support I received at Towson University and the support I now receive at CAIR-Columbus. Any credit given to me must also be given to the institutions that have supported me in doing this work.”
The Hidden Heroes ceremony was a part of the fourth annual National Civic Leadership Training Summit put on by The AGF each summer. The summit’s purpose is to train Vote Everywhere Ambassadors for the coming academic year.