14 Muslims to Follow on #BlackLivesMatter

Donna Auston is a doctoral candidate in the department of Anthropology at Rutgers University, where she also received her B.A. in Linguistics and Africana Studies.  Her research interests include race, ethnicity, gender, the body, religion, language, media representation, and Islam in America. Her dissertation is an ethnographic exploration of Black Muslim activism and spiritual protest in the Black Lives Matter era. She has been researching and writing about the history and experiences of American Muslims for nearly two decades, with a particular focus on the African American Muslim community.  She has a book chapter entitled “Color Me Invisible: The Hidden Legacy of African American Muslims,” which appears in The Black Experience in America, Second Edition).

Her forthcoming book chapters include works on the intersections between Islamophobia and Black Lives Matter, on African American Muslim women working as professional undertakers, and a study of the Nation of Islam’s religious transition in the aftermath of Elijah Muhammad’s passing in 1975. She has also published a number of short essays, including, “Mapping the Intersections of Islamophobia and #BlackLivesMatter: Unearthing Black Muslim Life and Activism in the Policing Crisis,” and “Recalled to Life: On the Meaning and Power of a Die-In.”  In addition to her written scholarship, she lectures regularly at universities and other venues on subjects relating to her research. She has appeared on television and radio outlets including Al Jazeera and BBC World Radio, and her work has received coverage from national media outlets including NBC News and The Huffington Post. She has penned editorials for Anthropology Now, Al Jazeera English, and The Washington Post.