Islam and the Black Freedom Struggle
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2023-06-15
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en
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This paper aims to analyze the role of Islam in the Black Freedom Struggle. It aims to negate centuries long erasure of Islam in African American history and put to the forefront the integral legacy of Islam in the Black Freedom Struggle. The paper will answer the following question: How has Islam been used as a force of resistance for African American freedom? It does so by going through the history of Islam in African American communities starting from slavery to emancipation and Pan-Africanism, Black Nationalism, and religious movements in the Jim Crow era. Through the Civil rights era, mass incarceration and mass conversion to Orthodox Islam. Analysis of the role of Islam in the Black Freedom Struggle is based on historical methods of research. Primary sources as well as secondary sources will provide evidence for the research. Chapter one will start by analyzing Muslim slave narratives and sources that discuss enslaved Muslim Africans. The research will examine the attitudes and positions of enslaved Muslim Africans, their cultural practices, and expressions. Moreover, the research will examine Islamic tradition and how they have been used as a force of resistance in the struggle for Black Freedom. Chapter two will discuss the aftermath of slavery. The research will go over the rise of white terrorism and Jim crow law and ideas of Pan-Africanism and Black nationalism and its relation to Islam through emerging religious movements. The research will discuss how these issues have caused a new wave of resistance and its integral connection to Islam. It will go into the rise of sociopolitical and religious movements into the civil rights era. Chapter three will discuss the post-civil rights era and shift from Black nationalist forms of Islam to Orthodox Islam. Moreover, this chapter will discuss the issue of mass incarceration and conversion to Islam in U.S. prisons. The research will go into the revival of Orthodox Islam and its role in Black liberation. Islam started as a direct form of identity that was used to resist its oppressors during slavery. In the wake of slavery and efforts to remove Islam from the enslaved Africans, other forms of oppression have caused a surge of mutations of Islam to return to African American communities. In the aftermath of the civil rights era, prominent figures have reintroduced orthodox Islam to African Americans. The oppressive force of mass incarceration led to inmates turning to Islam as source of practicing freedom. This contributed to a revival of Islam in African American communities.
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