Shoulder to Shoulder with American Muslims: What the Interreligious Community Is Doing to Combat Anti-Muslim Bigotry in America

Abstract

While anti-Muslim bigotry has been on the rise in the United States in the last decade, it reached a particular peak in American public discourse in 2010, with the debates over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque,” the hype around the Murfreesboro mosque in Tennessee, and the threat to burn the Qur’an from Pastor Terry Jones in Florida. At that time, a number of U.S. religious denominational leaders rallied around the American Muslim community to stand in solidarity publicly against this rhetoric, and the Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign was born. Shoulder to Shoulder now includes thirty-two member denominations and organizations and works on national and local levels to address anti-Muslim bigotry in its many manifestations in American society.