Anyone who has encountered a public speech by Saleem Mannan is unlikely to forget the experience.
Many in Saginaw have seen Saleem express to the City Council in opposition to permits for marijuana dispensaries, or most recently in favor of the Houghton-Jones Neighborhood Association. This makes him an ideal presenter for a gathering to discuss one of the 19th century’s great orators.
Abolitionist Frederick Douglass spoke in Saginaw in 1868 and again in 1885, and Mannan will review the second appearance in a “Lunch and Learn” session at noon on Tuesday, Feb. 7, at the downtown Castle Museum of Saginaw County History.
“His first visit was only three years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and his main topic at that time was to expand voting rights,” Mannan explains, “In 1885, his Saginaw speech marked the 50th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade.”
Participants at the free event will witness how this local dynamo on current events, as a board member for both Great Lakes Bay Health Care and for Houghton-Jones, traces deep roots. After all, Douglass devoted his main efforts to preparing for the stage, far more than speaking from the stage. Saleem’s story is similar.
The former Anthony Albert moved to Saginaw in 1970 and began a 42-year career at the GM Grey Iron Plant. In time he enrolled at St. Joseph’s Adult High School, near the shadow of the foundry.
The principal was Sister Ardeth Platte, an advocate for the poor. She encouraged his civic involvement and he was elected Student Council president, which led to his encounters with activists such as Lou Oates and Omowale Art Smith, Charles McNair and Bobby Stitt. He recalls vigorous debates on philosophy and on strategy, as his new awareness did not diminish his independent thought.
His faith conversion led him to the Islamic Temple on Fourth Street, where today he chairs the Board of Trustees. The familiar structure, across from the old Germania School/OIC, now is connected with the Islamic Center of Saginaw, located on North Center Road out past Heritage High School.
He met his bride, Mennana, on one of his first pilgrimages to Morocco, and today they share eight children and 14 grandchildren.
So where did Saginaw’s newest Muslim get started in his social volunteerism? This began not in the inner-city, as we might imagine, but also in Coleman, north of Midland, in partnership with farmers to create an organic food co-op.
“They were Quakers, the kindest people you ever will meet,” he recalls, and he remains a relentless advocate of a healthy diet and nutrition.
Next came a successful effort to save the life of Carl Bass, who was on death row when he escaped from an Alabama prison and fled north to Saginaw.
Mannan went international when he tackled apartheid in South Africa, supporting Oates and Sister Ardeth when they pushed 1980s City Council members for a local disinvestment ordinance, part of a national movement that helped to create Nelson Mandela’s historic 1991 transition from prisoner to president of the former British colony.
“My feeling was that as bad as we (black citizens in the U.S.A.) had it, our conditions were nowhere near as bad in South Africa,” he said.
In Arabic, his first name represents “peaceful” and his last name “generous” and “benefactor.” These are qualities that Saleem Mannan brings to any endeavor, even when he is in his Frederick Douglass mode.
