Black Interfaith Project

The Second Gentleman of the United States, Douglas Emhoff, gave keynote remarks, and the event featured a diverse panel who shared the current state of Black interfaith engagement in the United States.

“The interfaith experience of Black life in America has often been overlooked and unacknowledged,” said the Rev. Frederick Davie, senior advisor for Racial Equity, IFYC. “The Black Interfaith Project seeks not only to rectify this unfortunate past but to celebrate the richness of interfaith bridge building within Black communities and thereby enrich the entire interfaith experience of the nation.”

The Black Interfaith Project at IFYC centers the diversity of religious, spiritual, and philosophical expressions that have animated the Black experience in America since the time of enslaved Moroccan explorer, Mustafa Azemmouri, in the early 16th Century to the era of President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris. Additionally, the Black Interfaith Project explores the dialogue between those traditions, the bridgebuilding between the corresponding groups, and the implications for Black communities and America as a nation. The project is supported by a $1 million grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.

The Black Interfaith Project maintains that some of the most inspiring crossing of religious boundaries and many of the most meaningful moments of interfaith cooperation in American history have come out of the Black experience, from the Underground Railroad to the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights movement to the interfaith coalition that elected President Obama.

Black Interfaith will explore how interfaith efforts – historical and contemporary, personal and political – that emerge out of diverse Black spaces contribute to the formation of the United States as a religiously diverse democracy.

Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC): IFYC, the nation’s premiere interfaith institution, is a civic institution working towards an America where people of different faiths, worldviews, and traditions can bridge differences and find common values to build a shared life together.

Mustafa Azemmouri Taken on Spanish Expedition: As a young man, Azemmouri, also known as Estebanico, was sold into slavery in 1522 in the Portuguese-controlled Moroccan town of Azemmour, on the Atlantic coast. He was sold to a Spanish nobleman, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza. Azemmouri may have been raised as a Muslim, but because Spain did not allow non-Catholics, particularly Muslims and Jews, to travel to the New World, most historians believe that he was required to convert to Roman Catholicism to join the expedition. His Christian name, Esteban (meaning Stephen), suggests that he may have been baptized. Referred to as “the black,” by survivors of the expedition, Azemmouri was the most able to communicate with indigenous peoples and was crucial to forging working relationships between tribes and Spanish explorers that led to European settlement in what would become New Mexico and Arizona.

Founding of First African Baptist Church in 1773:
This historic church served as the largest gathering place for Blacks and whites to meet during the time of segregation. The building is a living legacy of Black Interfaith in what would become the United States of America. The holes in the floor are in the shape of an African prayer symbol known to some as a BaKongo Cosmogram. These holes enabled escaping slaves to be guarded under the church’s floors on their path to freedom. Many of the pews have West African Arabic script engraved on them, a recognition that many of the enslaved people that built and passed through the church were Muslim.

The Muslim Roots of African American Music: Ethnomusicologists agree that the roots of African American music are to be found in Islamic West Africa. The blues is an African American creation, born of American circumstances and various influences. What makes it unique is the prevalence of several Sahelian/Islamic stylistic elements that became dominant due in part to historical events particular to American slavery.

Leadership of the Black Interfaith Project :
1. Rev. Frederick Davie, Senior Advisor for Racial Equity, Interfaith Youth Core: Reverend Fred Davie joined IFYC as Senior Advisor for Racial Equity in June 2021.
2. Rev. Alexis Vaughan, Program Manager, Interfaith Youth Core: Reverend Vaughan manages the Black Interfaith Project and supports IFYC’s Alumni Leadership work and Racial Equity initiatives.

Black Interfaith Steering Committee: Black Interfaith is led by a Steering Committee of prominent scholars and institutional leaders with expertise in the intersection of interfaith cooperation and the Black experience.

Interfaith America, 141 W. Jackson Blvd, Suite 3200, Chicago, IL 60604, US - source : interfaithamerica

note :
Mustafa Azemmouri is in the historic records of this world, him being the father of all African slaves back in the days.
The First enslaved African to arrive in America is Mustafa Azemmouri or Estevanico, he was a Moroccan-Berber. His aliases included Esteban Al-Dornati, Estebano, Estebao El-Mori, Saeed Bin Haddou, and Said Bin Haddou Al-Azmouri.

Mustafa Azemmouri was sold into slavery following the famine of 1520-1521 in Morroco, and he was part of the Narvaez Spanish expedition that set out in 1527 to establish the colony of Florida. He was amongst the four survivors out of 300 men who had explored the peninsula. By late 1528, the group had reduced to 80 men, who survived after being thrown ashore by the waves to the share of Palston island after attempting to sail across the Gulf of Mexico.

(note from : ng.opera.news)