RALEIGH, N.C. – With incidences of violence against Muslims occurring in some parts of the country, some North Carolina groups have decided to fight the trend with knowledge.

One such group is United Electrical Workers Local 150. The union is starting in the workplace, educating employers and co-workers about the Islamic community and offering tips for showing respect to members of the Muslim faith.

UE President Nathanette Mayo says it's a natural fit for a union that already champions workplace rights and social justice issues for public service workers.

"It's just opening up and educating people that there's more than one path to enlightenment, and that whatever path you choose, if that makes you a better person and that helps you do what you see is right, then that's all the better," she states.

Recently the anti-Muslim group ACT for America organized a nationwide protest against Muslim people – and Mayo's union is one group that took part in a counter-protest in Raleigh.

The union is asking that in addition to helping curb violence, North Carolinians take steps to better understand the Islamic culture.

Mayo says it isn't only a matter of recognizing other people's religious holidays and traditions, it's also important that workplaces accept the culture and communication needs of all people.

"We've had employers who have told people that they could not speak their native tongue while they were at work,” she relates. “You may not have English as a first language, and because you don't, doesn't mean that you're denied your right to speak that language at work."

The electrical workers' union is part of a North Carolina-based group called MERI, the Movement to End Racism and Islamophobia.

Last year, members facilitated 30 presentations and 11 workshops on Islamophobia throughout North Carolina and other states.

Reporting for this story by North Carolina News Connection in association with Media in the Public Interest. Media in the Public Interest is funded in part by Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.


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Hispanic Heritage Month began in mid-September and runs through Oct. 15, and a financial institution in Washington state is finding unique ways to serve Hispanic members of its community.

Newrizons Credit Union in the western Washington town of Hoquiam offers a variety of financial services to people, regardless of whether they are even members of the credit union. Its chief executive, Ynette Gibbs, said one of the services it provides is helping people with low incomes file their tax returns.

"That helps the Hispanic community, because they get to know a financial institution that's asking for nothing from them," she said, "and they're providing a service that allows them to legally file their taxes, whether they themselves are legal in the country or not."

Gibbs said folks who don't have legal status need to provide an individual tax identification number, or ITIN, to have their income taxes done. She noted that they also can open bank accounts with that number. Gibbs said some of the biggest obstacles to serving Hispanic community members are language and a lack of overall trust in financial institutions.

Another way Newrizons builds trust with this community is through internships for local high school students. Also, Gibbs will be speaking on a National Credit Union Administration panel next month about the credit union's 'Pathway to Citizenship' program.

"That's a program where we marry together the concept of a savings account and a line of credit," she said, "particularly focused on paying the costs of gaining citizenship, which can be a 10-year process."

In a 2017 report, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. found about 30% of low-income Hispanic households didn't have bank accounts. Gibbs said some rely on payday lenders because of their lack of trust in traditional financial institutions. She said credit unions such as hers are willing to take a chance on folks who may not have had the chance to bank elsewhere.

"We're more open to getting to know that person and helping them," she said, "when others may not be willing to, or just don't see the value in that sector to serve."

Members of a Texas group working to end mass incarceration thought they were making headway, but now they're not so sure.

Faith in Texas has ideas for how Dallas County could reduce the prison population by 25%, and received support from a county judge to draft a proposal.

Joe Swanson, lead community organizer for the group, said the reform talks have stalled, and the Dallas County commissioners have appointed a committee to determine if a new jail should be built. Swanson emphasized reform is an important conversation, especially because people of color are incarcerated at significantly higher rates than white people across the country.

"We can either put our heads in the sand, and close our ears and our eyes and pretend that's just a coincidence," Swanson pointed out. "Or we can do something about it, in a way that's not just the status quo of, 'Well, new jail.' And I think that's really important to name; this is systemic racism at work."

One commissioner argued a new jail might be appropriate, because the county has a dated criminal justice system, and needs new ways of doing things. Faith in Texas will rally supporters at Thanksgiving Square tomorrow beginning at 2 p.m., to make sure they know about the proposed new facility and what it could mean for incarceration reform.

It is estimated Black men make up 13% of the U.S. population, but 35% of those who are incarcerated. Swanson worries an emphasis on new jail construction could permanently stall discussions about alternatives the county could pursue.

"As far as we can tell from the outside looking in, it's been people pointing fingers at each other to the reason why our jail population is so high," Swanson observed. "Rather than trying to sit down at a table together to coordinate an effort to reduce the jail population."

The U.S. has 5% of the world's population, but holds almost 25% of the world's prisoners, about 2.2 million people, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.

Every election, thousands of people are disenfranchised from voting because they are incarcerated. But Houston's Harris County Jail has shown the two are not mutually exclusive.

In 2021 a polling place was available at the jail for the first time.

Maj. Phillip Bosquez, of the Justice Housing Bureau for the Harris County Sheriff's Office, said many of those incarcerated are pretrial detainees and not serving a sentence for a felony conviction, making them eligible to vote. He assumed implementation would be daunting, but acknowledged he was proved wrong.

"Logistically in a system this size, the third largest in the country, it wasn't as hard as we thought," Bosquez recounted. "We got it accomplished, and we've had four elections, and we're set up for the big election coming in November."

Researchers with the Sentencing Project have found the vast majority of those incarcerated are eligible to vote but face significant barriers.

In the past 25 years, half the states have expanded voting access to people with felony convictions. Opponents argued felons should not be allowed to vote while incarcerated because they say voting is a privilege, not an absolute right of citizenship.

Durrel Douglas, founder of the Houston Justice Coalition and jail-based Voting Initiative organizer for The Sentencing Project, was instrumental in bringing voting to the city's jail. He said just 13 of the 26 people eligible cast an in-person ballot for this year's primary, and while it is a small number, he believes it is a right to be protected, and noted minority communities are primarily affected.

"When we think of who's typically behind bars, it's disproportionately Black people and brown people," Douglas pointed out. "Expanding this access to those who otherwise wouldn't have access to the ballot is huge when it comes to expanding access to democracy."

Douglas believes jails could and even should serve as voting locations in all states.

"There are high concentrations of people that are in jails every day," Douglas emphasized. "Some 549,000 people on any given day that don't have access to the ballot, just because they're in jail."

In addition to Houston, jails in Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., also have introduced polling places for those incarcerated on Election Day.