SPRINGFIELD: It’s an incongruous sight, a woman in a salmon pink hijabstanding on a Massachusetts traffic median, waving at oncoming cars andasking perfect strangers to vote her into Congress.
“Hey how are you? Good to see you!” hollers Tahirah Amatul-Wadud at a malepedestrian. A few cars beep their horns, the odd driver zaps down hiswindow to say hello. Quite a few drive past, seemingly oblivious.
Amatul-Wadud is a mother of seven, a lawyer, a community activist and aMuslim, who rises before dawn, prays five times a day and fasts duringRamazan.
Now aged 44, she faces the biggest hurdle of her life: asking a majoritywhite constituency, where Catholics are the biggest religious group, tomake her the first Muslim woman elected into Congress.
But for her, it’s about policy, not religion. It’s about betterrepresenting and improving lives in western Massachusetts, an areasuffering from higher than average unemployment, where many work two jobsjust to make ends meet.
“I don’t always talk about religion because I don’t look to lead or servefrom a religious prespective,” she tells AFP at her campaign headquartersjust outside Springfield.
She says her goals are secular, but her faith is “where I find my corestrength.”
Indefatigable, armed with a warm smile and a lawyer’s mind, Amatul-Wadud ispart of a groundswell of women and progressive Democrats running for officethis year, motivated at least in part by opposition to President DonaldTrump.
She’s one of five candidates vying to become the first Muslim woman inCongress in November mid-term elections — 12 years after Minnesota’s KeithEllison became the first Muslim in the US House of Representatives.
If she’s successful, she would also become her district’s first woman andfirst African American in Congress.