The Youngest Chair in North Carolina who holds the distinction of being the first Muslim woman ever elected to public office in the state.
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North Carolina
Nida Allam has assumed the role of North Carolina’s youngest chairperson after taking the oath of office as chair of the Board of Commissioners (BOCC) recently. The 30-year-old daughter of Indian and Pakistani immigrants wrote on X, a social media platform known as Twitter previously, on December 5, 2023.
Allam stated, “I had the honor of being elected Chair of the Durham County, BOCC. Amid a rise in bigotry & hate this Board looked at this Muslim woman who has grown up in a post 9/11 America being called a terrorist, told to go back to where I came from… & they chose to call me Chair.”
Being the first Muslim American woman to be elected to office in North Carolina, Nida Allam was one of five women to win the North Carolina Democratic Primary for the Durham County Board of Commissioners’ five seats.
She currently serves on the following Boards and Committees: Board of Health, Criminal Justice Advisory Committee, Durham History Museum, Durham Partnership for Children, EMS Peer Review Committee, Open Space and Trails Commission, Project Access Steering Committee, and Workforce Development Board.
Previously, Allam had worked as a political director for Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign in 2016 and was elected as third vice chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, becoming the first Muslim American to serve on the party’s executive council. She also served as chair of Durham Mayor’s Council for Women, serving as liaison between women and the city government officials in an effort to improve the quality of life of women in Durham.
Allam was driven to politics in 2015 after three of her best friends who were all Muslim American students— Deah Barakat, Razan Abu-Salha, and Yusur— were shot and killed by their neighbor in Chapel Hill.
