Ten thousand American Muslims will gather in Richmond, Virginia, on Thursday July 3, for an annual convention.
But they’ll also be engaged in service by tending to a neglected cemetery where African American graves have been forgotten and overgrown.
Indeed, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community will spend the morning before their 75th annual convention cleaning headstones and clearing brush from graves in East End Cemetery that have received little care or funding, in stark contrast to the well-maintained section where white Americans were historically buried.
“It’s a cemetery that’s been pretty much run over, hasn’t been cared for, doesn’t really get funding,” Harris Zafar, national spokesperson for the community, tells Word In Black. The service effort, in partnership with Friends of East End, is a continuation of the restoration work begun last year.
An estimated 15,000 African Americans are buried at the cemetery, which Zafar says was “not kept at all. And so, we spent time, we toiled and sweated a lot in the heat,” to restore it.
The cemetery restoration is part of the community’s annual “Jalsa Cares” day of service that precedes their Jalsa Salana convention at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.
This year’s convention theme, “The Giving Hand: What the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam Offers America,” emphasizes how faith drives service to others, with sessions exploring topics, including Islam and modern capitalism, civic service, and spiritual leadership.
The convention, the longest-running annual Muslim gathering in the United States, brings together members from the community’s 65 chapters nationwide.
Along with the July 3 Day of Service, the gathering will examine topics including:
• Islam and Modern Capitalism — exploring economic justice and ethical equity
• The Giving Hand — understanding how Islam inspires civic service
• The Role of Khilafat-e-Ahmadiyya — examining spiritual leadership and global Muslim unity
“The event will bring together American Muslims of all backgrounds, alongside faith leaders, civic officials, academics and community members, in a spirit of dialogue and unity,” according to Zafar.
Beyond cemetery restoration, volunteers will also clean debris along the James River and work with local organizations, including the American Red Cross, RVA Community Fridges, and the Fonticello Community Food Forest, to address food insecurity.
“This is no ordinary gathering,” says Amjad Mahmood Khan, national secretary of public affairs.
“It’s a demonstration of how Islam in America is deeply tied to compassion, civic duty, and patriotism.”
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which has 25,000 to 30,000 members in the United States, operates under centralized leadership with a Khalifa based in the United Kingdom. Harris describes the community as “the oldest, or at least one of the oldest, Muslim communities in America,” having recently celebrated its 100-year anniversary.
“We partner with the host city of our convention,” he says, and are “working with several organizations to explore the needs of Richmond.”
And restoring the cemetery is certainly needed. Last year’s restoration effort revealed “some beautiful headstones, some broken headstones, and people who’ve been forgotten,” Zafar said.
“It’s a kind of preserving history, giving respect back to those who have died.”
The clergy and ICE
Amid ongoing immigration crackdowns by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, faith leaders of every denomination are calling for action.
On June 8, the 47th president federalized the California National Guard to quell protests against ICE raids, over the objection of Governor Gavin Newsom. The agency has detained individuals outside of churches, courthouses and schools, due to a January 21 directive by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), allowing ICE to enter what it calls “sensitive areas.”
The AFRO spoke with Reverend James Tait, pastor of the Village Church in Washington, D.C. about the duty of faith leaders when it comes to protecting immigrants at risk. Tait has been a member of the strategy team for the Washington Interfaith Network (WIN) for seven years.
Tait said that when cruelty masquerades as policy, faith organizations in the WIN must stand with immigrants and “lift our voices in holy protest.”
“We say unequivocally that no child should be snatched from their mothers’ arms in the name of national security,” Tait told Ali Halloum of The Afro.
“The Washington Interfaith Network stands in solidarity with immigrant communities across the country, from east of the river in D.C. to Central California’s migrant camps.”
According to Tait, WIN is a “power building” organization that represents 45 churches, mosques, synagogues, community organizations and labor unions in the District.
He said that as an African American clergyman, he is especially aware of the “dangerous dance” between racism and immigration policy in the United States, noting the similarities between ICE’s “surveillance and criminalization of immigrants” as part of the same system that is over-policing Black communities and “chokes justice at every turn.”
This story originally appeared here.