Black History Month (BHM) is an annual program originating from 1926, celebrated by Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands.
During BHM, Black American Muslims engage in numerous events and campaigns to celebrate the legacies and traditions comprising the African American culture, in which they are intrinsically interwoven.
The Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative has launched its annual #BeingBlackandMuslim hashtag to celebrate black history and challenge the erasure of Black Muslims in mainstream American Muslim life.
“So we’re coming to the 7th anniversary of @MuslimARC’s launching of the #BeingBlackAndMuslim hashtag,” Margari Hill, executive director of Muslim ARC, wrote on Twitter.
“I’m grateful to the original team that brainstormed and helped us organize and the thousands who have sustained the conversation.”
The non-profit organization launched the hashtag in 2014 and held it first townhall during Black History Month as a space for Black Muslims to share their experiences.
This year, the hashtag is used to highlight Black Muslim figures from around the world such as Omar Ibn Sa’id, Al-Jahiz, as well as the Zanj Rebellion.
MuslimARC is a racial justice education organization with a vision that focuses on education and liberation.
The organization works to establish spaces for learning and developing racial equity, connect people across multi-ethnic networks, and cultivate solutions for racial equity.
According to the Pew Research Center, black Muslims make up a fifth of US Muslims.
African American Muslim history extends from the enslavement of Muslim Africans and into the Twentieth-Century Black Muslim Movement.
White Christian slaveowners stripped African Muslims of their faith and forced mass conversions. During the Black Muslim Movement, numerous African Americans reembraced the religion of their forefathers.
