Donna Auston

Auston holds a B.A. in Linguistics and Africana Studies from Rutgers College.[1] She completed her Ph.D at Rutgers University in the Department of Anthropology.[1][4][5] Her dissertation focused on activism and protest in the Black Muslim community, specifically in the context of the #BlackLivesMatter movement.[6]

Auston is an adjunct professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey.[5][7]

In the fall of 2020, Auston was a participant in Princeton University's "Islam In Conversation" series, hosted by the Muslim Life Program and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice. As part of the panel, Auston was in conversation with Amaney Jamal, the Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, along with other scholars. Specifically, the panel discussed the impact of U.S. elections on Muslim communities and the importance of Muslim involvement in domestic and international policy.[8]

In the summer of 2020, Auston participated in a webinar with the American Anthropological Association titled "The Anthropology of Policing: The Persistence of Racialized Police Brutality and Community Responses." This was a two part series that spanned over two webinar sessions. As a panelist, Auston participated in conversation about how the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with the rise of police brutality in the United States had impacted the lived experiences of the Black American community.[9]

In 2019, Donna Auston was interviewed for an episode of the PBS series "A Matter of Faith" in which she discusses the growing popularity of Islam in the United States, and shares her vision for how Muslim spaces in America can improve. The series is hosted by a bishop, imam, and a rabbi, and the episode delves into conversation regarding a plethora of topics relevant to the Muslim community, and how social justice is pertinent to Auston's own reversion story and understanding of the Islamic faith.[10]

In March of 2017, Auston was a speaker at an Islamophobia and Race Symposium hosted by the University of Louisville. The event was an all day symposium featuring speakers from a variety of disciplines and institutions. Auston was a speaker and part of an event titled "Anti-Black, Twice: An Intersectional Analysis of Islamophobia", as part of a larger series titled "Islamophobia and Racism on the ground." [11]

In 2016, Auston participated in a panel titled "Women Speak About Malcolm X" hosted by the New York Public Library. This webinar was hosted in celebration of the birthday of Malcolm X and was hosted in collaboration with the Malcolm X Museum. The event included a panel of all women, including Dr. Sylvia Chan-Malik, a colleague of Auston's.[12]

Donna Auston was a guest speaker for an event with Islamic Relief USA, an Islamic nonprofit providing aid to individuals around the country and the world. The event was an online webinar titled "From the Front Lines: Housing and Structural Poverty in America." The event featured two other panelists and a moderator, and the conversation was centered around Systemic racism and how Charitable organizations can aid in pursuing racial and economic justice.[13]

In the summer of 2015, Auston started a viral Twitter campaign, #BlackMuslimRamadan, in an effort to honor and celebrate the traditions of Black Muslims in the United States, which she states are "absent in the media." [14] The hashtag was also used to highlight issues of racism within the Muslim community.[15] She has been featured on a national scale, in outlets like NBC News,[14] the New York Times,[16] and the Huffington Post.[15] Auston also wrote a piece for The Washington Post reflecting and commenting on the success of the #BlackMuslimRamadan online campaign. In the piece, she also advocates for the importance for online spaces where marginalized Black, Muslim communities could form community in their shared experiences.[17]

She serves as an advisor for numerous initiatives and projects, including the Center for Brooklyn History’s Muslims in Brooklyn oral history project.[18][6] Auston was the Chair of the 2020 Black Muslim Psychology Conference Programming Committee.[19]

Auston has been named one of the top 100 Muslim Social Justice Leaders by MPower Change, the largest Muslim digital advocacy organization in the Americas.[20][21][19]

Auston is a convert to Islam. She grew up Christian [10] and was the first person in her family to convert to the religion[16]. She converted to the religion in the late 1980s[2] as a teenager.[10] Her interest in Islam stems from a desire to learn more about how Islam discusses topics of social and racial justice.[2] Auston is a firm believer in social justice as integral to faith and as an act of worship. She is involved in the Muslim community in Newark, New Jersey.[2]

Auston's mother lived in Alabama in the 1960s and experienced segregation while living there, as she delivered Auston's older sister in a segregated hospital. [2]

• Auston, D. (2017). Prayer, Protest, and Police Brutality: Black Muslim Spiritual Resistance in the Ferguson Era. Transform Anthropology, 25: 11-22.

This article on Black Muslim spiritual resistance explores the intersection between race, spirituality, and protest. It discusses the complicated ways in which the Black Muslim community incorporates all three in pursuit of social justice. In understanding the involvement of the Black Muslim community in the #Black Lives movement, Auston discusses Black Muslim protest as a form of worship.[22]

• Auston, Donna. (2014). "RACE & PLACE." Azizah, pp. 26

RACE & PLACE was written for the November 2014 issue of Azizah. This work discusses racism in Muslim communities in the United States. Despite shared experiences of discrimination and Islamophobia faced by the American Muslim community as a whole, prejudice within the community itself needs to be addressed. Auston recounts personal stories and experiences of American Muslims, ranging from a seventeen year old African American Muslim woman to a white convert, in order to discuss race relations between Muslims.[1]

• Auston, Donna. (2015). "Recalled to Life: On the Meaning and Power of a Die-In." Anthropology Now.

In this essay, Auston describes the "die-in" at the 2014 yearly meeting of the American Anthropological Association. At this event, anthropologists protested against the growing number of deaths of Black people by law enforcement. The group protested for four and a half minutes, symbolic of the four and a half hours that Michael Brown (Ferguson incident) lay in Ferguson, Missouri.[23] Auston reflects the nature of this experience as an African-American woman and the symbolism behind the protest.[3]

• Auston, Donna, and Sylvia Chan-Malik. “Drawing Near to God's Pleasure: A Dialogue on the Black Muslim Political Tradition and the Moral-Ethical Imperatives of American Islam .” Muslims and US Politics Today: A Defining Moment, Ilex Foundation, Boston, MA, 2019, pp. 185–200.

This publication is chapter 10 from a book titled "Muslims in US Politics Today" and describes an interview between scholars Donna Auston and Sylvia Chan-Malik, both from Rutgers University. The conversations which are transcribed in the book took place in April and October of 2017. In the conversations, the two discussed politics in Muslim America, particularly the role that Islamophobia and National security play in dominating conversations about American Muslims. They also speak specifically about the role of the Muslim community in the Black Lives Matter movement. The second half of the interview centers around the intersection between race and gender in Islam, as well as about the discourse of the Hijab and how historical contexts have shaped contemporary discourse on Muslim women and feminism.[2]