Here is an excerpt from Precious’ August 10, 2007 Muslim Journal article titled “Islam in America Vignettes: To Tell The True Story of African American Muslims.”
“In United States history, the first Muslim congressman (Keith Ellison); the first Muslim state representative, state senator, and longest, and at one point the highest, serving Muslim elected official (Larry Shaw); the first female Muslim state representative (Yaphett S. El-Amin); the first female Muslim Master in Chancery in the courts (Zakia Mahasa); the first Muslim judge (Adam A. Shakoor); the first Muslim military chaplain (Abdul Rasheed Muhammad); the first Muslim mayor (Charles Bilal); the first confirmed Muslim to appear on a U.S. postage stamp (Malcolm X); the first female founder of a Muslim Museum (Okolo Rashid, The International Museum of Muslim Cultures); the first founder of a traveling Muslim museum (Amir Muhammad, Collections and Stories of American Muslims); the first Muslim to give the invocation in the United States Senate (Imam W.D. Mohammed); the first Muslim American to found an international cultural and educational institution open, and of service, to all people (Muhammad Ali, The Muhammad Ali Center); the first nationally recognized all girls Muslim sports team and featured on ESPN (the Lady Caliphs basketball team of W.D. Mohammed High School); the first and largest Islamic School system in the United States history and open to children of all faiths (Clara Mohammed Schools); the first Islamic-based sorority and dedicated to sisterhood, scholarship, leadership, community service, and open to non-Muslims (Gamma Gamma Chi Sorority, Inc.); the first Muslim president of a non-Muslim academic college or university and a female (Dr. Althia F. Collins, 13th president of Bennett College); and the two first known Muslim Americans ever to receive the highest civilian awards in the country (the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to Muhammad Ali; and the Congressional Gold Medal which was awarded as a group honor to the famed Tuskegee Airman, America’s first African American military airmen, of which Major George Shade, a Muslim, is one)—all these firsts in United States history were achieved by African American Muslims. Additionally, of the thousands of active duty Muslims serving in the U.S. military, the vast majority are African Americans. Furthermore, of the 100 influential signers to sign the historic Williamsburg Charter of 1988 (a reaffirmation and reappraisal of the First Amendment/First Freedom of the U.S. Constitution, the freedom of religion), the internationally respected African American Muslim leader Imam W.D. Mohammed was the only Muslim signer thus representing the entire American Muslim community. And history further illustrates that New Medinah, Mississippi, a “town” founded and run by African American Muslims since 1987, was given a symbolic key to the nearby city of Hattiesburg, MS in 1996 by the mayor for their positive community building efforts with people of all faiths.”