Belief, Belonging, and the Battle for the South: A Progressive Muslim Perspective

I’ve always been a progressive.

Maybe it’s in my blood, an inheritance from a lineage of Somalis who had to fight to exist, to claim freedom in lands that never made it easy. Survival is political. For people like us, Black, Muslim, immigrant, first‑generation, Southern, working‑class, and multilingual, navigating identity itself is an act of resistance.

Before I ever knew the word “progressive,” I knew what it felt like to be shaped by propaganda. Growing up in America, I lived between two worlds: inside my parents’ home it was Somalia; outside, it was America. That line wasn’t just cultural. It was emotional, religious, and deeply political.

To some, that might sound anti‑American. But for many immigrants, the separation isn’t resentment, it’s fear. Fear of losing yourself in a place that doesn’t fully see you. Fear of the unknown, of a land where the welcome is not guaranteed and the rules are never clear.

I’m American, born and raised. I speak the language, majored in it, pledged allegiance, and learned the unspoken codes of belonging. My parents, however, still saw this country as uncharted territory, their love for it careful and wary, grounded in both the promise and the peril of being here. That duality shaped me. It taught me to see injustice in the smallest moments: the stares at my mother’s traditional garb, the quiet sting of “Where are you really from?”, the constant negotiation of identity.

To be a Black, Muslim, first‑generation Somali woman in the South is to live in tension every day to believe in belonging while knowing it is never fully given. To hold faith and freedom in the same breath while knowing both can be questioned at any moment. To fight for a “we” that does not always include you. Sometimes, even your own people exclude you.

My parents survived through restraint. My generation survives through refusal. Their courage gave me the freedom to question, to organize, to imagine. My politics are not rebellion; they are continuation, survival transformed into self‑determination.

For me, Charlotte is where belief and refusal meet the political stage. It is a city that teaches you the South is both a battlefield and a laboratory for change. From city council to neighborhood precinct meetings, from co‑working hubs to political organizing sessions held in churches, Charlotte shows what’s possible when people fight to be seen. It is a city of contradictions, where innovation and inequality, history and hope collide; where every act of participation carries weight, and where strategies ripple outward across the South.

Charlotte has also shown what momentum looks like. In recent years, Democrats across the city have secured victories up and down the ballot: Black mayoral leadership, at‑large council seats, unwinnable districts flipped, and school board and judicial roles won. These wins are not symbolic, they reflect organizing muscle, community investment, and a demand for policies that meet real needs.

The most recent municipal elections continued that trend, proof that Charlotte voters want leaders who prioritize affordability, livability, and opportunity for working families. Rising rents, stagnant wages, and the crushing cost of childcare remain defining issues. Campaigns that speak to those realities win because they reflect the truth people live every day. Yet those tangible wins don’t always trickle down to working people, those same voters.

Still, these victories should not merely be dismissed as progress. They point to the direction and desire Southerners yearn for, justice and equity when working people organize around affordability, housing, and economic mobility. The lack of Charlotte’s leadership pipeline and the policies “championed” here set the tone for the next decade of potential Southern progression.

That’s why Charlotte must do more than celebrate wins. It must support the people who turn those victories into lasting change. Local progress slows when the same leaders carry the weight year after year without new voices stepping in. Progress becomes sustainable only when leadership becomes shared. Passing the baton is not surrender, it is strategy. It keeps movements fresh, reflective of the city’s diversity, and grounded in the experiences of the communities that drive the work.

Charlotte needs a culture that invests in rising leaders, not only those at the podium, but also the organizers, creatives, policy minds, everyday people, and faith leaders who shape our daily lives. When emerging leaders are supported, trained, and trusted with real responsibility, they carry the work forward with sharper insight and deeper legitimacy. Long‑term power in the South is built through succession, not stagnation. Passing the baton protects the wins, honors the labor that brought us here, and makes room for those who understand the Charlotte of today, not just the Charlotte of a decade ago.

I learned that truth firsthand.

In 2015, I ran for office in Charlotte, the first Muslim woman to do so, and the only one on the ballot then or since. Ten years later, there has still been only one Muslim woman elected to public office in the entire state of North Carolina. That campaign wasn’t an act of protest, it was an act of necessity. It was about representation, about ensuring that our communities, too often overlooked and unheard, had a seat at the table. Running taught me what it means to claim space within a political system that was never designed for us, and it deepened my commitment to the long game: building power from the ground up, not only as a Muslim woman but as representation for all communities that have been pushed to the political margins.

When I took my first organizing job with the League of Conservation Voters, I realized activism could be a lifeline. I quickly learned that those who are going through the worst struggles have the best solutions, all they were missing was a platform. So many were waiting for their stories to be shared yet they were left behind in the siloes of poverty and silence. It was through my organizing work I realized that clean air, safe water, and environmental justice shouldn’t be luxuries—they should be rights. That work taught me that social issues never change without political power. It was then that those words of Malcolm X rang even truer: “We are not outnumbered. We are out‑organized.” That truth still burns in me. Belief, strategy, and relentless organizing are the tools to build a just South.

It’s that same fire that drew me to leaders like Zohran Mamdani.

Who is Zohran Mamdani? He is a 34‑year‑old Muslim Assemblyman, a Democratic Socialist who began 2025 with barely one percent support across New York City and turned that spark into a movement. He is living proof that vision, courage, and conviction can transform regions too often defined by exclusion. From Queens, he built something bigger than a campaign, he built a blueprint, a movement linking housing, transit, and childcare into one fight for dignity and belonging. What Zohran has done is not just politics; it is a reimagining of power itself. His work reminds us that when people organize around shared struggle and shared hope, even the most entrenched systems can shift. He shows us what becomes possible when belief meets strategy, and when courage refuses to wait for permission.

Queen City isn’t Queens but the parallels are striking. Both are areas rich in diversity, culture, and creativity, yet constrained by systems that have failed to serve their people fully. Zohran’s work shows what can happen when we organize from the ground up when we build coalitions that center those most impacted and demand accountability from power.

His campaign reminded me that the South can be a place of power, belonging, and justice, too. Because if transformation is possible in Queens and the larger New York City metro, it can be true for Charlotte‑Mecklenburg and all its municipalities including Cornelius, Davidson, Huntersville, Matthews, Mint Hill, and Pineville. What Zohran has built is not a final chapter, it’s an invitation. The question for us is how we take that blueprint and make it our own: how we honor this work, expand it, sustain it, and ensure the next generation doesn’t have to fight for visibility the way we do.

Charlotte, like New York City, is a place where policy and politics shape daily life, not just economies, but people’s opportunities and futures. Having lived in both the Westside of Charlotte and New York City has shown me that a lack of investment in public schools, affordable housing, and childcare doesn’t just hold back communities, it actively divests from the city’s growth. While New York City faces some of the worst school segregation in the nation, both cities show how under‑resourced neighborhoods limit opportunity. Families struggle with rising rents while wages stagnate in North Carolina a full‑time minimum‑wage worker would still need about 4 jobs to afford a two‑bedroom rental in Charlotte. Parents juggle multiple jobs without adequate childcare, and schools brim with potential while lacking the tools students deserve. Without deliberate investment, cities constrain who belongs and who thrives.

The political connection between these cities is clear: solutions are transferable, lessons are portable, and advocacy is universal. Organizing for better education, fairer housing, and reliable childcare in Charlotte is not just local work, it is part of a national conversation about equity. By building networks between cities like Charlotte and New York City, we can share strategies, amplify community voices, and create policies that reflect the lived realities of working families.

Charlotte teaches us that the South can lead. Local victories here can shape national change. The lessons from New York City remind me, us, that progress is possible when bold ideas meet relentless organizing and community power. Charlotte-Mecklenburg is full of historic firsts: the city’s first Black woman mayor, Vi Lyles; the first Black sheriff, Garry McFadden; a Black district attorney; and a majority-Black city council, county commission, and school board. These milestones are important, but they are not the same as progressivism.

Representation matters but it is not a substitute for power, accountability, or real change. Blackness and womanness alone do not automatically translate into progressive outcomes. Charlotte’s leaders can hold historic titles, yet the city can still fall short of the equity and justice that true progressivism demands. Real progress is measured not by who sits in office, but by what they do once they get there.

That’s why the next steps are clear. We must invest in local leadership, organizers, students, and faith leaders who understand their communities and elevate solutions from within. We must connect towns, cities, and rural areas so campaigns for justice are collective, not isolated. We must invest in civic education that equips young people to advocate for themselves and their neighbors. And we must hold institutions accountable, dismantling systems that perpetuate environmental racism, economic inequity, and exclusion.

For me, this is not abstract policy, it is deeply personal. Growing up between two worlds, the daughter of parents who feared yet loved this country, I learned early that survival itself is political. As a Black Muslim woman, I refuse invisibility. Transforming survival into power, fear into courage, and hope into action is more than a choice, it is the inheritance I carry forward.

Charlotte can be better. It must be better. The South has spent generations being dismissed, underestimated, written off as backward. That ends with us. We are not here to follow the nation’s lead, we are here to set the pace. We will build the policies, coalitions, and power that others will study and copy. This is not the South begging for recognition. This is the South declaring its role as the frontline of progressive change.

And if the establishment cannot keep up, they will be replaced.