This Day in History: 2017-04-13
In the Year 1807 “Freed Muslim Remains in America” – Yarrow Marmout, an African slave of the Muslim faith, was set free in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood, where he lived for the
rest of his life. Marmout was an early shareholder in the Columbia
bank, which is the second chartered bank in the U.S. Today portraits
of Marmout hang in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the
Georgetown Public Library. In 1927, nearly 175 years after his arrival
to the U.S. as a slave, a descendant of his daughter-in-law’s family,
Robert Turner Ford, graduated from Harvard University.
November 8, 2016 - "Minnesota Elects Country's First Muslim American Woman Legislator"
Ilhan Omar became the first Muslim American woman elected to any legislative body in the country's history. Omar, a Somali-American, is a former refugee and was elected to serve in Minnesota's state legislature. In order to win her party's nomination in Minneapolis, where she serves, she had to defeat a 44-year incumbent. She is an advocate for affordable college, criminal justice reform, economic equality and clean energy.