From Malcolm X to Mamdani: 125 Years of Muslim Organizing in New York City

The Center for Global Muslim Life is an America’s rooted, global Muslim, Sufi & Decolonial publication discussing spirituality, politics, cities, social impact startups, and the arts & culture of the heart. We are a Reader Supported Nonprofit Publication, please click here to donate.

“On November 4th that is exactly what we will tell the world. We can make city hall a place where New Yorkers come to expect the future, not just failure.” - Zohran Mamdani

Introduction: November 5, 2025

On November 5, 2025, New York City made history. Electing, Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist assembly member from Queens, as the city’s first Muslim mayor. This isn’t just a political victory, it was the culmination of 125 years of Muslim institution-building, organizing, and resistance in America’s largest city. Of course Mayor Mamdani would have never won if his campaign was just rooted in identity, his team with nearly 100,000 volunteers built an electoral machine through targeted universalism, and clear socialist campaign goals that could lift up the working class of New York, and could very well transform the direction of politics throughout the United States for decades to come.

This is the story of how organized power becomes political power, and how Muslim New York built the infrastructure that made November 5, 2025 inevitable. This article traces the 125-year arc of Muslim organizing in New York City through seven critical periods. Throughout, we’ll explore how decades of patient institution-building created the conditions for electoral success, and why other Muslim communities across America can’t simply replicate the victory without first replicating the organizing work.

This victory didn’t emerge from nowhere. This victory was made possible by many, but we will look at a number of key moments and leaders throughout this long historical arc, including:

• Malcolm X’s revolutionary organizing in Harlem in the 1960s
• Imam Siraj Wahaj’s community transformation of Bedford-Stuyvesant starting in the 1980s
• Betty Shabazz’s three-decade fight to preserve Malcolm’s legacy
• Linda Sarsour’s 15 years building the Arab American Association of New York
• DRUM’s 25 years organizing South Asian workers in Queens
• Adama Bah’s resilience after being detained as a 16-year-old “potential suicide bomber”
• The lawsuit that defeated NYPD surveillance of Muslim communities
• Yusef Salaam’s journey from the Central Park Five to City Council
• Imam Khalid Latif’s decades of faith-based community building
• Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi’s student activism despite government detention

Part I: The Foundations (1904-1964)

The First Muslims Arrive

The story of Muslim New York begins long before Malcolm X, before the civil rights movement, before most people imagined Muslims would become a significant presence in America.

1904: Imam Satti Majid, a Sudanese imam, arrives in New York City to serve a small community of South Asian and Arab Muslims. At the time, there were perhaps a few hundred Muslims in the entire city—mostly merchants, sailors, and students.

1920s-1930s: The Great Migration brings African Americans north, including members of the Moorish Science Temple of America and the Nation of Islam. These movements established strong presences in Harlem and Brooklyn, creating the foundations of Black Muslim life in New York.

1931: Lipka Tatar Polish Muslims found the Powers Street Mosque in Brooklyn, one of the first purpose-built mosques in New York City. The community, fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe, established a neighborhood institution that would survive for nearly a century.

1939: Shaikh Daoud Faisal, a Grenadian convert to Islam, founds the State Street Mosque in Brooklyn. Faisal’s vision of Islam as a universal faith accessible to all races would influence generations of American Muslims.

These early mosques weren’t just places of worship—they were community centers, mutual aid societies, and sites of resistance against discrimination. They established the principle that Muslim institutions in New York would serve their communities comprehensively, not just spiritually.

Malcolm X: The Revolutionary Tradition

By the 1950s and 1960s, the Nation of Islam had become a powerful force in Black communities across New York. And no figure embodied its revolutionary potential more than Malcolm X.

Born Malcolm Little in 1925, he spent time in Harlem in his youth before his incarceration led him to the Nation of Islam. After his release, he became the Nation’s most effective organizer and spokesperson, establishing Temple No. 7 in Harlem as a center of Black Muslim life.

But Malcolm’s evolution didn’t stop there. After his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964 and his break from the Nation of Islam, he founded the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood (later known as the Muslim Mosque, Inc.) on 113th Street in Harlem. This represented his vision of Sunni Islam combined with revolutionary politics, a synthesis that would inspire generations of Muslim organizers.

As we discussed recently in our article, Towards a New Future Identity of Islam in the Americas this radical political legacy has been part of Muslim life in the America’s since the 1500s.

February 21, 1965: Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem by US government undercover agents, acting as members of the nation of Isalm. He was 39 years old. His death could have ended the story. Instead, it sparked decades of institution-building in the long life of the spirit of Malcolm X that still lives with us today.

Part II: Betty Shabazz and the Long Fight for Malcolm’s Legacy

Malcolm’s widow, Dr. Betty Shabazz, spent the next 32 years fighting to preserve his legacy and create institutional memory of his work.

The 30-Year Campaign (1965-1997):

Betty Shabazz understood that Malcolm’s ideas would only survive if they were institutionalized. She spent three decades advocating for the preservation of the Aududon Ballroom, developing the Malcolm X Educational Foundation, and ensuring that Malcolm’s story would be told accurately.

She raised six daughters alone while earning her Ed.D. and becoming a respected educator at Medgar Evers College. She gave countless speeches, participated in documentaries, and mentored young activists. Most importantly, she kept the vision of the Audubon Ballroom site alive through multiple city administrations that had no interest in honoring Malcolm’s memory.

June 23, 1997: Betty Shabazz died from burns sustained in a fire. She was 61 years old.

May 19, 2005: On what would have been Malcolm X’s 80th birthday, the Malcolm Shabazz Center opened at the site of the Audubon Ballroom. This was Betty’s dream realized—a living memorial that would inspire future generations of Muslim political consciousness. Political power requires institutional memory. Betty Shabazz modeled what it means to fight for decades to create the infrastructure that future movements can build upon.

Part III: Imam Siraj Wahaj and Community Transformation

While Betty Shabazz fought to preserve Malcolm’s legacy, another form of Muslim organizing was emerging in Brooklyn, one focused on transforming entire neighborhoods through community organizing.

Imam Siraj Wahaj and Masjid al-Taqwa: Transforming Bedford-Stuyvesant

Among the most significant examples of Black Muslim community organizing is the work of Imam Siraj Wahaj and Masjid al-Taqwa in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Background:

• Imam Siraj Wahaj (born Jeffrey Kearse in Brooklyn) grew up in the projects of Brooklyn and converted to Islam in 1969
• After studying Islam extensively, he became imam of Masjid al-Taqwa in Bedford-Stuyvesant in the early 1980s
• At the time, Bed-Stuy was plagued by the crack cocaine epidemic, violence, and urban decay

Community Transformation:

Imam Siraj and the Masjid al-Taqwa community undertook a comprehensive approach to neighborhood revitalization:

• Direct action against drug dealers: The community organized patrols and confronted drug activity on the blocks surrounding the mosque, driving dealers away through persistent, organized presence
• Youth programs: Created after-school programs, tutoring, and mentorship for neighborhood youth
• Economic development: Supported local businesses and entrepreneurship
• Community safety: Established neighborhood watch programs and conflict resolution
• Social services: Provided food assistance, job training, and family support
• Interfaith coalition building: Built relationships with churches and community organizations across Brooklyn

The Transformation of Bed-Stuy:

Over the years, the blocks around Masjid al-Taqwa transformed from a drug-infested area into a thriving, safe neighborhood. The mosque became a model for how faith-based community organizing could reclaim neighborhoods without relying on increased policing or mass incarceration—instead building safety through community cohesion, economic opportunity, and collective action. Masjid al-Taqwa’s model of community transformation—building power through service, organizing for collective safety, creating economic opportunity, and centering the most marginalized—became a template for Muslim organizing across New York City. This work laid groundwork for the post-9/11 organizing that would follow.

The Hart-Celler Act and Immigration

While Black Muslim communities were building institutions in Harlem and Brooklyn, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (Hart-Celler Act) opened the door for massive immigration from Muslim-majority countries.

1965-2001: Muslim immigration to New York exploded. Communities from:

• South Asia (Pakistan, Bangladesh, India)
• The Arab world (Egypt, Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria)
• Africa (Somalia, Senegal, Guinea, Nigeria)
• Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia)

These communities settled in specific neighborhoods:

• Bay Ridge, Brooklyn became “Little Palestine” and “Little Yemen”
• Jackson Heights, Queens became a South Asian hub
• Astoria, Queens attracted Arab communities
• The Bronx saw significant West African Muslim settlement

Each community brought its own organizing traditions, and slowly began building institutions—mosques, community centers, halal restaurants, Islamic schools.

Part IV: Post-9/11 Organizing and Resistance (2001-2020)

September 11, 2001 changed everything. The War on Terror, mass surveillance, hate crimes, and systematic discrimination against Muslims became the defining reality for a generation. But rather than retreating, Muslim communities in New York doubled down on organizing.

Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM): The South Asian Power Base