Detroit, 1953

NYT Article on Early Mosque in NYC

"Mosque Shows That Muslims Have Long Been a Part of New York" By DAVID W. DUNLAP DEC. 9, 2015

See also "Islam has long history downtown: Why the 'Ground Zero mosque' belongs in lower Manhattan"

Another Early 'White' Muslim Converted by the NOI

As I've delved deeper into the research for my forthcoming book A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States Volume 2: The African American Islamic Renaissance, I've discovered a few pieces of information that I wish I had found for my book on early white American Muslims.

The first is the story of a woman whose family all identified publicly as white, but she insisted she was Native American. She embraced Islam through the Nation of Islam in the 1940s and remained a member of the group for the next several decades.

Today I spotted another story. It is interesting that this person's conversion narrative, as you can see below, is similar in that the convert is claiming to possibly have a secret non-white family history. Interestingly, although the crossing of racial boundaries was not a widespread phenomenon among pre-1975 non-black converts to Islam, it does seem to have also existed somewhat, if only at a social level, for several whites and Latinos in non-NOI Muslim groups. And, based on my preliminary research, it appears to me that it was an increasing trend for converts after 1975. As I finish up HCTIUS Volume 2 and begin work on Volume 3, I believe the issue of racial border crossing through Islam will be an important topic on which I hope to shed much more light.

Washington, 1942

See also "Chicago, 1942"