Omar Ibn Said

A new, Pulitzer Prize–winning opera adapts the memoir of Omar ibn Said, an African Muslim who spent much of his life enslaved in North Carolina.

Omar ibn Said was captured in Senegal at 37 and enslaved in Charleston. A devout Muslim, he later converted to the Christian faith of his enslavers. Or did he?

The journey of Omar Ibn Said.

Islam in America dates to the founding fathers, says Smithsonian’s religion curator Peter Manseau.

What does it mean to be Muslim in America? And how has the practice of Islam in the U.S. changed over time?

From Phillis Wheatley to Lil Uzi Vert, Black names and their evolution tell the story of America.