Today In Black History: NYC Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani
Learn more about the first African-American of South Asian descent mayor of New York City
Issue #972 Today In Black History, Monday, January 5, 2026
Zohran Mamdani: From Kampala to City Hall
Zohran Kwame Mamdani’s journey from Kampala to becoming New York City’s 112th mayor is a remarkable convergence of personal history, intellectual legacy, and political vision. Born in Uganda in 1991, Mamdani carries within him the layered identity of a nation that has profoundly shaped his understanding of belonging, justice, and political community.
Zohran was born in Uganda to two remarkable parents whose lives embody the complexities of postcolonial Africa. His father, Dr. Mahmood Mamdani, is a renowned professor of anthropology at Columbia University, and his mother, Mira Nair, is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker known for her work exploring South Asian and Indian narratives. The couple met in Uganda in the late 1980s, a time when the country was rebuilding after decades of political turmoil. Dr. Mamdani deliberately gave his son the middle name “Kwame,” after Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s former president.
As a young man, Mahmood Mamdani witnessed one of Africa’s most dramatic political upheavals: the 1972 expulsion of Uganda’s Asian population by President Idi Amin. Although Mahmood remained in Uganda until the final day of the three-month expulsion deadline, he ultimately had to leave the country that had been home to his family for generations.
Zohran spent his early childhood in Uganda and South Africa before his family relocated to New York City in 1999, when he was seven years old. This upbringing across multiple continents gave him a unique perspective on identity and belonging. Unlike many children of immigrants who might distance themselves from their origins, Zohran has openly and directly embraced his Ugandan heritage.
During his 2025 mayoral campaign, Zohran made his identity central to his political message: “I’m a Muslim. I was born in Africa. I’m of South Asian descent.” This bold assertion of a multifaceted identity—one that defies easy categorization within American racial and ethnic boxes—resonated powerfully with New York voters, particularly younger voters seeking a politics that celebrates difference.
Zohran has built a political movement around the principles of universal equal rights and respect for cultural differences.
He speaks multiple languages, including English, Hindi, Urdu, Spanish, Bengali, and Arabic, using them effectively in his political campaigns to connect with diverse New York communities.
In 2025, the New York Times attempted to scandalize Zohran’s college application, in which he had identified as African and Ugandan.
Mayor Mamdani’s father allegedly stated that Zohran Mamdani is not the first South Asian mayor of New York City, but rather the first African of South Asian descent to serve as mayor. Words matter. Zohran Kwame Mamdani is an African American. Period.
Dr. Mahmood Mamdani helped found the Asian African Association in Kampala in 2013. The organization’s opening declaration stated: “Asian Africans are people whose past is Asian, but whose future is African. They are Africans of Asian descent.” This formulation—emphasizing that political belonging should be based on where one lives and commits to building a future, rather than where one comes from—became a cornerstone of Zohran’s political philosophy.
Zohran’s campaign deliberately appealed to New Yorkers across racial, religious, and ethnic lines with a vision of inclusive democratic socialism.
As Mahmood Mamdani has noted, the threads that led to the expulsion of Uganda’s Asians in 1972 are present in contemporary American politics: debates over birthright citizenship, indigeneity, and who truly belongs. Yet Zohran’s election demonstrated that it is possible to build a politics that embraces rather than rejects the complexity of modern identity.
Zohran Mamdani graduated from Bowdoin College in 2014, having majored in Africana Studies.
From 2015-2019, he worked as a housing counselor and musician, including curating and producing the soundtrack for his mother’s film, “Queen of Katwe” (2016).
Also from 2015-2019, Zohran worked on several political campaigns and joined the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in 2017.
In 2020, after winning the State Assembly primary against an incumbent, Zohran was elected to the State Assembly and was re-elected twice without opposition. He sponsored 20 bills, of which 3 became law. He also participated in the hunger strike with taxi drivers in 2021.
Zohran Mamdani married his wife, internationally renowned visual artist Rama Duwali, a Syrian American Muslim, first on December 24, 2024, in an Islamic ceremony in Dubai, and then in a civil ceremony at New City Hall in February, 2025. The couple had a large cultural ceremony in July 2025, at the Mamdani family estate in Uganda.
Zohran announced his mayoral campaign on October 23, 2024, and then won the Democratic primary in an upset victory over former Governor Andrew Cuomo in July of 2025.
He was elected the 112th Mayor of New York City on November 4, 2025, with the highest voter turnout since 1969.
Zohran Kwame Mamdani was inaugurated as the mayor of NYC on January 1, 2026, and was sworn in with his hand on two Holy Qur’ans: one belonging to his grandparents and one on loan from the Schomburg Center.
He is now the youngest NYC mayor in over a century, and the first Muslim and first Indian American mayor of New York City.
Zohran Mamdani’s journey from Kampala to City Hall is thus not simply a personal success story, but a vindication of a particular vision of politics: one rooted in Uganda’s painful history of exclusion and displacement, yet oriented toward a future in which belonging is based not on ancestry or ethnicity, but on his shared commitment to building a common future together.
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In 1911, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., was founded at Indiana University.
In 1943, William Henry Hastie, aide to the Secretary of War, resigned in protest of discrimination and segregation in the Armed Forces.
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