photo essay

The hajj journey of black Americans 50 years after Malcolm X

The hajj journey of black Americans 50 years after Malcolm X

30 Photos

MECCA, SAUDI ARABIA — As Shahidah Sharif, an African-American Muslim, joined millions of fellow pilgrims from around the world on the hajj this year, she felt a renewed connection. To her own “blackness,” she says, but also to humanity as a whole.

“When the human family becomes more important than just myself and my needs, nothing can get in the way of building relationships,” she told The Associated Press in Mecca. “It doesn’t matter if we have different faiths, different races, different nationalities, I can find something in common with you.”

For American black Muslims, this year brought a significant landmark, the 50th anniversary of Malcolm X’s death. A year before his assassination, Malcolm X underwent a transformative experience on the hajj, seeing the potential for racial co-existence after witnessing, as he wrote, pilgrims “of all colors displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe could never exist between a white and a non-white.”

This year’s hajj, which ended Saturday, came at a time when the debate over race in the United States is at its most heated in decades, with the Black Lives Matters movement arising after the deaths of a number of black men at the hands of police were captured on camera and seen widely by the public.

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Traditional headdresses, banned by Islamist group, return to Mali

Traditional headdresses, banned by Islamist group, return to Mali

16 photos

Issues surrounding women’s rights and the treatment of women received special attention around the globe during International Women’s Day on March 8. To commemorate the occasion, Reuters photographer Joe Penney documented traditional headdresses worn by the women of Gao in Mali.

Radical Islamist group MUJAO (Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa) placed limitations on these headdresses during their nine-month reign, which ended in January with the arrival of French and Malian troops. The headdresses, made of beads, gemstones, fabric and fake hair and traditionally worn by elites for special occasions, were criticized by MUJAO, who said they were not Islamic enough.

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The weapon-wielding men, women & children of the North Florida Survival Group

The weapon-wielding men, women & children of the North Florida Survival Group

20 photos

The North Florida Survival group trains children and adults alike to handle weapons and survive in the wild. The group passionately supports the right of U.S. citizens to bear arms and its website states that it aims to teach “patriots to survive in order to protect and defend our Constitution against all enemy threats.”

Armed with his camera, Reuters photographer Brian Blanco joined the group on a training mission led by Jim Foster on December 8, 2012.

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