Ibtihaj Muhammad, professional fencer and the first Muslim-American woman to win a medal in the Olympics, challenged Auburn students to become agents of change and spoke to the importance of inclusion, determination and integrity.
Emerge at Auburn University partnered with Delta Airlines to host this event Thursday evening as part of an ongoing speaker series.
Trevor Spengeman, president of Emerge, has known about Muhammad's story since her appearance at the 2016 Olympics.
"We wanted to do a better job this year of bringing a more diverse group of speakers," Spengeman said. "Last year, we had a lot of speakers who had ties to Auburn, and now we want to reach out to different groups and different areas of the world."
In her talk, Muhammad described her experience growing up as an African-American Muslim woman who was heavily involved in athletics.
"As a young Muslim girl who didn't wear tank tops or short shorts, I always had to change the uniform in some way by adding long sleeves or spandex," Muhammad said.
When she first saw fencers at her high school, in their "long white shirts and long white pants," Muhammad and her mother realized that this might be a sport worth pursuing.
She would later earn a scholarship to Duke University for fencing where she majored in International Relations and African-American studies.
Early in 2016, Muhammad earned a spot on the American fencing team, which would compete in the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro that summer.
Through her fencing story, Muhammad talked about how growing up as a minority can impact a person's daily life.
"I found that in fencing, people challenge my existence in the sport," Muhammad said. "As a religious minority and an ethnic minority in a very white sport, there was a lot of pushback."
But Muhammad took it all as a challenge.
"When people didn't think I was capable of something," she said. "It really motivated me and pushed me in a way that made me a stronger athlete."
Muhammad said that it was her qualification for the American fencing team, not her medaling, that was the most important event.
"I qualified at the height of a presidential election where we literally had a candidate who was talking about installing a Muslim ban," she said.
Having been held in customs for her appearance, Muhammad spoke with first-hand accounts of the impact that this could have.
In itself, her acceptance on the team was a shock to the fencing community, but Muhammad also thinks it came at an important time for the American public.
Even after qualifying to compete and represent the country, Muhammad remembers being harassed on the streets of New York City for practicing her faith.
"A guy followed me from my fencing gym to New York Penn Station," she said. "He was yelling at me and screaming that I looked like I was going to blow something up."
Using her Twitter account, Muhammad took a picture of the man to show people what racism looked like.
"I wanted to show people that this isn't just happening on a small scale, it could happen to anyone," she said.
Then, shifting focus to her life and fame following her experience at the Olympics, Muhammad described how she has promoted diversity and community through sport.
In 2017, Mattel introduced a Barbie in a hijab, which was modeled after Muhammad.
As a self-described "queen of Barbies," who was only allowed by her mother to buy the black or brown dolls, this was an important moment for Muhammad.
"Kids out there, whether they are Muslim or not, now have the opportunity to play with a doll that chooses to wear a hijab," she said.
Muhammad said her partnership with Mattel is a combined effort to change the discourse around the Muslim community.
She also brought up her time serving on the U.S. State Department's Empowering Women and Girls Through Sport Initiative and Louella, the clothing line she has started, which aims to provide fashionable and modest clothing for women.
Muhammad was also promoting her book "Proud: My Fight for an Unlikely American Dream," which was being sold outside the event.
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