Sapelo Square is an award-winning blog that produces, documents, and archives the Black Muslim experience in the United States to shed light on its global impact. The team covers arts & culture, history, politics, and religion and strives to be a source of expert content on Black Muslims in America.
Sapelo Square began as a kernel of an idea. I had recently moved to the heartland and found myself far removed from my people, the communities that built within me and fortified my strong sense of self, Black and Muslim. The desire to see myself reflected in my surroundings surfaced as a very real need. I felt this need on personal, and professional levels as well, and began to ponder if the Internet might be place where this need could be partially, yet meaningfully, met.
- Dr. Su’ad Abdul-Khabeer, Founding Director and Senior Editor of Sapelo Square
Sapelo Square launched in May 2015 to commemorate the birth of the legendary black Muslim leader, El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz/Malcolm X. The all-volunteer team, or “squad” as they refer to themselves, embody the diversity of the black Muslim community. The Sapelo Square squad are a team of professional artists, activists, and academics. The squad has included both men and women of the Sunni, Shia, and Nation of Islam paths. They are ethnically diverse and have included African-American, biracial, Caribbean, and Afro-Latinx backgrounds. Some squad members were born into the faith while others are reverts. According to Abdul-Khabeer, this was all intentional. She believes, in order to speak to the diverse experiences of the Black Muslim community, this must also be reflected in Sapelo Square’s leadership.
As part of their vision, Sapelo Square aspires to “share, curate, and produce content that pushes our audience to think in imaginative ways and be subsequently motivated to act in innovative ways that bring the world that much closer universal justice and liberation.”