darien alexander williams.
african american islamic architectures
cohort. 2024-25
project. African American Islamic Architectures
location. Boston, MA; Detroit, MI; Chicago, IL
medium. exhibit
On an otherwise quiet Blue Hill Avenue in Boston’s Grove Hall neighborhood, the built environment gives little indication of what once stood here. A handful of modest storefronts, a repurposed church, and rows of residential houses now obscure the history of a vibrant Black Muslim corridor shaped by mid-century community planning and religious vision. A small, Sunni Masjid Al-Qur’an now stands, formerly known as Temple No. 11 of the Nation of Islam, once serving as the nucleus of this ecosystem—a site from which a full neighborhood infrastructure of Muslim-run businesses, schools, services, and housing emerged. Guided by the Nation’s theology and economic development plan, these institutions worked in tandem to provide spiritual and material grounding for Black life in the city amidst the Great Migration.
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This StoryMap project—African American Islamic Architectures: Built Environments of the Nation of Islam—grows out of that Boston origin point. It expands geographically and conceptually to examine similar built-environment interventions by the Nation of Islam (NOI) in Detroit and Chicago during the 1960s and 1970s. In each of these cities, NOI members adapted existing buildings and neighborhood infrastructures to meet their own theological, political, and economic needs. Through spatial repurposing, architectural adaptation, and communal vision, the Nation cultivated a distinctive urban landscape that remains largely understudied within both planning history and Islamic architectural discourse.
This work maps and contextualizes dozens of Nation of Islam-affiliated sites—mosques, businesses, training centers, schools, print shops—in Boston, Detroit, and Chicago. These cities became the laboratories in which the NOI's spatial ideas took material form. This project brings together archival records, historical newspapers, and site photography to render a layered view of how Black Muslim geographies took form. In doing so, the project contributes to an emerging conversation around Black urbanism and Muslim spatial histories. It invites us to rethink the categories of mosque and market, religious building and neighborhood plan, sacred and profane.
modeling and mapping a black muslim urbanism.
The core argument of this project is that the Nation of Islam’s mid-century work constituted a form of urban planning and architectural production, albeit one that has gone largely unrecognized by the disciplines that claim authority over these terms. The NOI developed and implemented an economic development plan across multiple cities that involved the purchase, renovation, and adaptation of buildings to serve communal needs. The plan was centrally directed but federated to some degree; Elijah Muhammad tasked local ministers with fundraising efforts through the sale of newspapers and bean pies. Accompanying businesses that were Nation affiliated, such as dry cleaners, grocery stores, barber shops, and administrative services like tax preparation would either be directly affiliated with a local branch (e.g. Temple No. 2 Cleaners) or a member who would pay into the Nation. During this time period, Muhammad Speaks would publish ads for these enterprises by region, inspiring others to patronize or contribute their own entrepreneurial skill. Occasionally there would be profiles on these businesses, connecting their practices to an ethic of Black and Muslim ownership of their own communities. These projects did not conform to dominant aesthetic or formalist conventions of Islamic architecture, nor did they fit into state-recognized planning paradigms (like a central document titled Comprehensive Plan). Yet they powerfully shaped Black urban life.
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In Detroit, Temple No. 1 operated out of a converted Jewish labor fraternity building, surrounded by an ecosystem of NOI-run bakeries, restaurants, and retail outlets. These businesses were not ancillary to the mosque’s spiritual mission; they were integral to it. Similarly, in Chicago, Mosque No. 2 became the religious and administrative center of the movement, with the Muhammad Speaks newspaper printed nearby and distributed nationally before relocating to Harlem. The paper was filled not only with theological reflections but also with aspirational renderings of Black Muslim neighborhoods, economic blueprints, and political commentary that positioned Black Muslims as global actors in a shared anti-colonial struggle.
These spatial projects were undergirded by a theology that linked spiritual purification with economic discipline and community self-reliance. Buildings became vessels for these ideas. A former church, a warehouse, or a single-family home might be transformed into a mosque, a training facility, or a clothing shop. The architectural aesthetics of these spaces were often modest, but their symbolic and functional importance was immense.
“Accomplishments of the Muslims” Nation of Islam brochure, showcasing architectural and planning projects (1970s)
methodology and ethics.
This research combines archival work, spatial mapping using ArcGIS, and field photography from site visits to Boston, Detroit, and Chicago. Archival materials include issues of Muhammad Speaks, local building permit data, newspaper archives, and records from institutions like the Schomburg Center in Harlem. Where possible, oral histories and secondary sources have been consulted to ground the analysis in both documentation and lived memory.
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As a Black Muslim scholar, I approach this research with a commitment to community accountability and ethical engagement. While this StoryMap focuses on the 1960s and 1970s, the Nation of Islam is a living organization, and many of the sites in question are still active. For that reason, I have not mapped current operational sites unless they are already public knowledge. This project does not aim to surveil or expose, but rather to honor and contextualize. Opacity is treated here as a form of ethical practice. When information was not available publicly or where photographic documentation felt inappropriate, I chose to leave the data incomplete. The goal is not a totalizing catalog, but a respectful and generative spatial history.
a theology of the built environment.
At the heart of these spatial interventions was a theological vision. The Nation of Islam modeled a theology that translated into a robust program of property acquisition, business ownership, and architectural adaptation.
This theology was not ornamental; it was infrastructural. It shaped the repetition of mosque aesthetics, the gendered training regimens of the Fruit of Islam (a men’s paramilitary self-defense wing that practiced martial arts and provided security), and the Muslim Girls’ Training program (which taught domestic labor and leadership to women and girls). It also structured the financial cooperatives that supported building purchases. Even modest renovations became acts of world-building.
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The NOI did not build minarets or replicate Ottoman domes. Instead, it rendered ordinary buildings sacred through use, orientation, and discipline. In doing so, it established a new grammar for what Islamic space could look like in the American city—a grammar rooted in Black experience and shaped by the exigencies of migration, segregation, and survival.
contributions and invitations.
This StoryMap is one step toward articulating a tradition of African American Muslim architecture and planning: a tradition that is neither derivative of Middle Eastern architectural models nor legible through white-dominated planning histories. It is adaptive, local, and deeply grounded in the spiritual and political needs of Black communities.
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By placing these sites on a map and telling their stories, I hope to broaden our understanding of who counts as an urban planner, what counts as architecture, and how Black Muslims have shaped American cities in ways that remain underacknowledged. I also hope this work serves as an invitation: for other researchers, for community members, and for students to see space not only as something to be studied, but something to be honored and reimagined.
“Accomplishments of the Muslims” Nation of Islam brochure, showcasing architectural and planning projects (1970s)
conclusion.
Toward a Black Muslim Spatial History
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The built environment is never neutral. It reflects the values, struggles, and imaginations of those who shape it. In the case of the Nation of Islam, architecture was a form of theology, planning was a form of care, and buildings were tools for liberation. This StoryMap makes those connections visible.
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Citation: Williams, Darien Alexander. “African American Islamic Architectures." SPIRIT HOUSE: A Crossroads Project. August 2025. Date Accessed. https://www.crossroads-spirithouse.org/williams.
Darien Alexander Williams is Assistant Professor in the Macro Practice Department at the Boston University School of Social Work. His research broadly engages Black and Muslim urban planning history, hurricane disaster recovery, climate change, and community organizing. Williams’ research examines methods of counter-institution building developed by the Nation of Islam as it grappled with segregation and land clearance in urban neighborhoods across the 20th century. By drawing on diverse sources such as archival documents, organization financial records, the Black press, interview data, and present-day fieldwork, Williams’ work maps the claims to land made by Black religious and Nationalist groups who challenged common assumptions about citizenship, identity, and planning power. He is currently an organizer for the Queer Muslims of Boston, a grassroots organization that builds social and spiritual space for LGBTQ Muslims across New England.
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