MOURIDE ISLAM IN NEW YORK CITY
While working on a project documenting the Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour’s first
concert in New York City in 1987, Katzenstein visited an early gathering of Mourides
in Brooklyn who were hosting a visit by Cheikh Serigne Modou Bousso Dieng, who
was the first direct descendent of Ahmadou Bamba’s family to visit New York.
The Mouride community of New York City has continued to grow each year and the
center of commerce and activity revolves around ‘Little Senegal’ on west 116th Street
in Harlem and at the Mouride Center on west 135th Street where the community prays
and where visiters from Touba are hosted.
Katzenstein and Cheikh Fara Gaye began documenting the Mouride community centered
in Harlem in 2009, meeting with local leaders, attending festivals and the annual parade
in honor of Cheikh Amadou Bamba.
The Cheikh Amadou Bamba Day parade was established in 1988 when the New York
Mouride community had recently been established. Each year in July thousands of
West African Mourides gather and march in a procession up Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
Blvd. from 110th Street and Central Park North to 125th. Men, women, and children
participate, decked out in their traditional garb, full of color and regalia. As the years
progressed participation has grown in numbers and also in the amount of groups
from outside of New York who wanted to share in the celebration.
Public performances like parades allow groups to rework their identity and infuse space
with special meaning. Parade participants carry large banners in different languages
and march chanting Islamic slogans. Some participants carry the Senegalese and American
flag along with huge portraits of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba and other prominent Mouride leaders.
Note: Some information taken from Black Mecca: The African Muslims of Harlem by Zain Abdullah, published in 2010