AMERICAN MUSLIMS: A HISTORY REVEALED
About this project:
AMERICAN MUSLIMS is a landmark series of short documentary films that reveal and explore the untold histories of Muslims in the United States.
AMERICAN MUSLIMS is an ambitious transmedia project that highlights the little-known story of Muslims in America. Starting with the first Muslims to arrive in America in the 16th century as part of the Spanish conquests, our films trace the waves of migration and conversion that have created the diverse Muslim communities that exist across the nation today.
The first series of six films is in production and scheduled for release in the Fall of 2024 by PBS on its flagship YouTube channel, website, and app.
Designed to appeal to a young, diverse, and curious YouTube-watching audience, each of our 20-minute films will focus on a key moment in this 500-year story, bringing it vividly to life and exploring its contemporary relevance through present-day characters, expert interviews, location shooting, archival material, motion graphics, and animation.
Taken together, the project will highlight the many strands that make up this little-known story and reveal how American Muslims have both shaped and been shaped by life in the United States. The films will explore how:
- Tens of thousands of enslaved African Muslims were brought to America in the 17th and 18th centuries and left a profound legacy that is still with us today.
- Popular perceptions of Muslims and Islam played an important role in debates about religious freedom at the founding of the nation.
- Muslim ideas about enslavement were invoked by abolitionists in the mid-1800s. At the same time, individual Muslims played an active role in helping the Union win the Civil War.
- Muslim immigrants began arriving from the Middle East and South Asia in significant numbers at the turn of the 20th century and immediately began to create new American expressions of their faith.
- The 1920s witnessed a resurgence of Islam among Black Americans fleeing the South as part of the Great Migration.
- In the 1930s, cities like Detroit saw the rapid growth of diverse Muslim communities and the development of important American Muslim institutions.
- In the 1940s and 50s, Muslim musicians played a key role in the development of jazz
- just one of many contributions Muslims have made to American culture.
- Muslims have played a vital role in the Black Freedom Struggle, with Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and the Nation of Islam leaving an enduring legacy.
- Immigration reform in the 1960s opened the US up to Muslims from around the world and encouraged an influx of Muslim professionals including doctors, engineers, and scientists.
- From the 1970s onwards, Americans of Muslim faith have experienced conditional citizenship, been impacted by American foreign policy, and built new institutions in the reality of a post-9/11 United States.
Produced by an experienced team of filmmakers and storytellers, these short films are intended for digital distribution before being combined into a single feature-length for broadcast and screenings. An accompanying podcast will create opportunities for a deeper discussion of the stories we tell and the issues they raise.
Project partners will support our distribution. These include a range of organizations committed to improving understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim communities and between different Muslim communities who may not know their shared histories.
Working with these organizations, we will produce educational materials for middle- and high-school use, college students, and adult education, including anti-racism and diversity training programs. We are also developing an outreach campaign that can share content across multiple platforms.
AMERICAN MUSLIMS is designed to promote further inquiry. To round out the project, a dedicated website will house or link to our short films, use creative techniques to visualize history, and provide easy access to primary sources, academic work, and other pieces of journalism in this area. It will also allow members of the public to add their own stories. Social media links to the website will ensure the project lives beyond conventional distribution and continues to serve as an effective educational resource for anyone wanting to learn more about these rich histories.
Our Mission
For many people, the story of Muslims in America begins on 9/11. But Muslims have been part of the fabric of American life since before the nation was founded. Losing this vital history has helped create space for bitter narratives that position Muslims as permanent outsiders whose belief system threatens the American way of life.
By questioning these stereotypes, and the knowledge gap that helps sustain them, this series will strengthen public understanding of the American Muslim experience at a critical moment in the political and cultural life of the country. With its intersecting themes of race, religion, and citizenship, this series couldn't be more timely or relevant.
In the next 20 years, Muslims are likely to become the second-largest faith group in the United States. Ignorance of who Muslims are, what Muslims believe, and how central Muslims are to the American story is no longer tenable.
This rigorously researched, nonpartisan series is intended to fill a dangerous knowledge vacuum that allows some people to claim that American and Muslim identities are antithetical. Looking at history, these films challenge that claim. They reveal how American Muslims have always been a part of the American experiment and offer what many young Americans are longing for — a more inclusive version of America's past.
Progress
Our vision for this project results from several years of research, story development, community engagement, and partnership building. Due to the pandemic, we were forced to take an extended break, but have since re-started production. We will complete the first six short films by the end of 2023 with release scheduled for Fall 2024. We are earmarking 2025 as a year of intensive educational and community outreach.