CAIR-SFBA is proud to host Linda Sarsour as the keynote speaker at our 21st Anniversary Banquet on Saturday, November 7th.
Linda is a working woman, racial justice and civil rights activist, and mother of three. Ambitious, outspoken, and independent, Linda shatters stereotypes of Muslim women while also treasuring her religious and ethnic heritage. She is a Palestinian Muslim American and a self-proclaimed “pure New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn!”
Linda serves as the Executive Director of the Arab American Association of New York and as a Senior Strategist for the Campaign to Take on Hate. In the wake of the police killing of Mike Brown, she co-founded Muslims for Ferguson to build solidarity amongst American Muslim communities and encourage work against police brutality. Linda is also the co-founder of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, the first of its kind in New York City.
She has received numerous awards and honors including “Champion of Change” by the White House, the New York City Council’s Shirley Chisholm Women of Distinction Award, and received the inaugural American Muslim of the Year honor from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Linda is also a board member of the New York Immigration Coalition, a coalition of over 200 nonprofit agencies serving the diverse immigrant communities of New York State, and the Network of Arab American Professionals-NY Chapter.
She has been profiled by PBS, Yahoo News, NY1’s One on One With Budd Mishkin, and the Guardian. She has written for and been featured in local, national, and international media discussing impact of domestic policies that target Arab and American Muslim communities, immigration, criminal justice issues, and Middle East affairs. Linda’s strengths are in the areas of civil rights in the context of national security, community organizing, civic engagement, and immigrants’ rights advocacy.