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.Murids living in otherAmerican cities travel to New York to take part in the activities, each group withseven across holding banners that identify their particular town.As paraders gatherat the park entrance, the procession expands and there is a gender and generationaldivide.Men are followed by a contingent of children and scores of fashionablydressed women, regaling onlookers with religious songs, dance steps, and their ownsacred imagery and slogans.Unlike other grandstanding parades, where the entirethoroughfare is blocked off and spectators line up behind barricades, police blocka sacred city 111traffic on the right side of Seventh Avenue, stopping cars from crossing the inter-section, as marchers reach each corner.As the procession moves forward, trainedreciters unleash piercing chants of Bamba s khassaïd (poetry) that reverberatethrough the streets.This grants them a singular and dominant voice, dramatizingtheir presence in Harlem.13As the march begins, I turn to walk with them, darting between sections andsnapping pictures.Flashing red and blue lights lead several limousines and marchersup the street.And a large banner appears less than a quarter of a mile into theparade:OUR BLACKNESS SHOULD NOT BE AN OBSTACLETO OUR KNOWLEDGE AND OUR PERFECTION.ALL MEN WERE CREATED EQUAL.CHEIKH AHMADU BAMBA.The saying is attributed to Bamba, but its tone is clearly reminiscent of a familiartheme in Black American history.This moving signage creates a  visual episte-mology, in the language of Allen and Mary Roberts, or a social narrative that inter-14jects new ways of seeing Blackness.In this case, the banner is particularly interestingin how it advocates a Murid approach to racial equality.It also makes a strikingappeal to racial legitimacy by referring to  Our Blackness, a declaration at the outsetthat Murid followers are part and parcel of the larger Black world.The notion thatChanters of Bamba s khassaïd (religious poetry) march in the parade while recitingaloud.(Photo Zain Abdullah)112 black mecca Blackness should not obstruct one s life chances is a dilemma that has historicallyplayed out across the Black diaspora.The fact that Bamba is credited with this sayinglinks African Muslims racial struggle to other Black resistance narratives.Not onlydoes it incorporate their voice into New York s racial politics, but, more important,it also affords them their own unique place in the overall fight against Black inferi-ority.Moreover, attributing this statement to Bamba means that their jihad (struggle)against racial discrimination is sanctified as an Islamic act.On an earlier occasion, I asked Amadou, a Jamaican-born convert and NewYork professor, about the meaning of the banner. Well, they re under the assump-tion, he explained,  that there is a microfilm in England of Cheikh Amadou Bamba,and they are saying that Gandhi had access to some of those things.And Gandhi mayhave been influenced by Cheikh Amadou Bamba s thinking.So if Martin Luther Kingwas influenced by Gandhi, you can see there s a cycle. This idea is part of an attemptto retell and lay claim to a crucial part of Black history.For African Americans, thesaga of slavery and civil rights provides a powerful narrative for defining the contoursof a viable Black identity.The suggestion that a Black African Muslim saint, ratherthan the Indian sage Gandhi, is responsible for key civil rights ideas modifies thiscrucial aspect of Black history.Such a proposition turns the foundation of a BlackChristian-based movement on its head, asserting instead that its origin is African andMuslim.While some might believe that the claim is entirely untenable, what mattersmost is not its accuracy but rather how Murids employ it to explain a new Blackpresence in Harlem.This statement indigenizes their presence, moving them fromthe margins to the center of Black America.Moreover, it puts forth a counter dis-course that complicates monolithic notions of Black identity.The procession continues steadily up the boulevard, and one section is led bymore than fifty grade-school children, all dressed in African clothes, some wearingkufis (men s caps) and khimars (headscarves) while others are without.I jump ontop of the street divider to take a photograph.About five children are carrying what15Susan Slyomovics calls an  ambulating sacred text :ISLAM = Peaceful Progressin Submission to Allah.Bismillah = Shaykh Ahmadou Bamba,Servant of the Messenger Spiritual Pole for Our Time.Shifting the discourse from racial to religious, this banner attempts to redefineIslam within a post-9/11 context and to legitimize Muridism within the Muslimworld.This is just the second parade after the 2001 attacks, and the sign immediatelyequates Islam with peace, an important proposition that many hope is not lost on anon-Muslim audience [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]