Abstract
Over the past eight years, the Black Lives Matter movement has advocated for marginalized communities within the African American population and called for police brutality and anti-black racism to be abolished. With the rise of Black Lives Matter in contemporary society, I am left wondering, do African American Muslims support the Black Lives Matter movement? There is no simple answer for African American Muslim leaders and laypeople because the Black Lives Matter movement supports LGBTQ+ rights, which some Muslims do not condone, and some rallies have broken out into riots. Religious leaders and scholars are split between supporting Black Lives Matter and supporting alternative faith-based activist groups. This article attempts to explore how African American Muslims engage in activism within the context of the Black Lives Matter movement and other social activism alternatives. Through the analysis of key terms relating to social activism and African American Muslims, this article explores how the Black Lives Matter movement began, the importance of activism online and in-person, exegetical statements on activism, how the concept of “double consciousness” can be applied to African American Muslims, and how African American Muslims engage in activism via the Black Lives Matter movement or alternatives. This research is a contemporary analysis in understanding how African Americans are called to challenge the status quo, anti-black racism, violence, and injustice through race and religion amidst the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Recommended Citation
Riccioni, Jacob C.
(2022)
"Black (Muslim) Lives Matter: African American Muslim Social Activism,"
The Hilltop Review: Vol. 13:
Iss.
1, Article 4.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/hilltopreview/vol13/iss1/4
Included in
African American Studies Commons, Ethics in Religion Commons, Islamic Studies Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Social Justice Commons, Sociology of Religion Commons
