Atlanta attorney and interfaith activist Edward Ahmed Mitchell has been named the new executive director of the Georgia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The move is significant because it marks the first step in the chapter’s goal of building a full-time staff in Georgia.
“I am excited and grateful for the opportunity to lead this accomplished civil rights organization as it defends Georgia Muslims and other minorities from the rising threat of discrimination,” Mitchell, 29, said in a statement.
Mitchell, 29, is also an editor of AtlantaMuslim.com, a presenter with the Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta and a member of the Fayetteville’s Islamic Community Center’s board of trustees. He graduated from Morehouse College and Georgetown University, where he served as president of the law school’s Muslim Law Students Association.
Mitchell said discrimination against Muslims has risen sharply in recent years.
In December, a Muslim student was asked by a teacher if she had a bomb in her bookbag.
“Although Georgia represented the beating heart of the Civil Rights Movement, our state is not immune to the disease of bigotry,” he said. ” We will, God willing, defend American values by investigating, exposing and stopping discrimination, whenever and wherever we uncover it.”
Yusof Burke, who served as acting executive director, will continue as president of the board.
