On February 7th, 2019, Denison University co-hosted a lecture by Dr. Jamillah Karim on “Islam and Black Feminism: Past & Present.” Dr. Karim shared her ethnographic and autoethnographic data on current and former women leaders of the Nation of Islam—particularly the Sunni African American community led by Warith Deen Muhammed—and discussed their similarities and differences with Muslim women immigrants. The feminist practices and leadership perspectives of these Muslim women contradicts stereotypes about women and demonstrates how their practice of Islam could become a model of equality and gender justice for the Muslim community as a whole.
The event was organized by Dr. Hoda Yousef of the History Department and co-sponsored by The Goodspeed Lecture Series, the Religion Department, the Laura C. Harris Fund, the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, the Center for Black Studies, the History Department, the Open House, and the Muslim Student Association.
Dr. Karim is an award-winning author, lecturer, and blogger. She is the author of American Muslim women: Negotiating Race, Class, and Gender Within the Ummah and co-author of Women of the Nation: Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam and is former Associate Professor of Religion at Spelman College.
The event was attended by the students of Dr. Toni King’s Black Women and Organizational Leadership class as well as students and faculty from across Denison’s campus.
