From April 26th- April 28th, CAIR-Columbus Public Affairs Coordinator Usjid Hameed attended the CAIR Civil Rights Tour in Alabama, as part of a delegation of approximately 30 national leaders from CAIR chapters around the country.
The trip centered around the Equal Justice Initiative opening of its Legacy Museum, which chronicles the history of African-Americans in the United States from slavery to mass incarceration, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which is dedicated the victims of lynching.
The museum is located on the site of a former warehouse where black people were enslaved in Montgomery, Alabama and uses interactive media, sculpture, videography and exhibits to immerse visitors in the sights and sounds of the domestic slave trade, racial terrorism, the Jim Crow South, and the world’s largest prison system. The memorial is located on a six-acre site atop a rise overlooking Montgomery and is a sacred space for truth-telling and reflection about racial terror in America and its legacy.
Attendees of the Civil Rights Tour also visited Selma and walked across the famous Edmund Pettus Bridge as well as Birmingham where they toured the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
“This trip reinforced the fact that while Islamophobia is a significant issue in modern America, it is a symptom of the much more prevalent and systemic anti-black racism seen in our country. The visuals from the Legacy Museum and the steel monuments in the National Memorial for Peace and Justice painfully illustrate how white supremacy has led to the deaths of thousands of African-Americans for no other reason than that the victims were black,” Hameed said. “As American-Muslims, we must realize that our struggle in intimately tied to the struggle of African-Americans and that we stand on the shoulders of those who gave their lives in the struggle for equality. We will never be free until the systemic, racist policies in our society, which disproportionately impact African-Americans, are eliminated.”
The Washington-based civil rights organization said it has witnessed an unprecedented spike in bigotry targeting American Muslims and members of other minority groups since the election of Donald Trump as president.
Community members in Ohio are being urged to report any bias incidents to police and to CAIR-Columbus’ Civil Rights Department at 614-451-3232 or by filing a report at: www.cair-columbus.com.
CAIR is America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
La misión de CAIR es proteger las libertades civiles, mejorar la comprensión del Islam, promover la justicia, y empoderar a los musulmanes en los Estados Unidos.