Zulfat Saura

Building Bridges to Equity and a Better Nashville for All At-Large Council Member Zulfat Suara, CPA

By Patricia M. Hammock, M.Ed./AET

Council member Zulfat Suara is a trailblazing servant leader making power moves as the first Muslim elected to the Metropolitan Government of Nashville/Davidson County and the first immigrant elected to an at-large position. Zulfat is the first Muslim woman elected in the State of Tennessee and the first Nigerian woman elected to any office in the country.

The at-large council member ran and won on a three-tiered platform focusing on fully funding Metro Nashville’s education system; advocating for community-based budgeting, which involves citizen input, and livable wages for all Nashvillians. Zulfat ran for office because she wanted to give back to the community from which she has received much. She ran because she is the mother of five children educated in Metropolitan Nashville public schools who have witnessed inequalities within the local educational system. Because she believes so strongly in the importance of education, Zulfat also is a proponent of better compensation for teachers, current textbooks and more computers in all schools, regardless of the zip code in which they are located.

Council member Suara is committed to working toward a Metro budget which seeks the input of its citizens and is reflective of their needs. Zulfat says, “As a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and auditor, I bring more than 30 years’ experience as an accountant to the conversation. Community-based budgeting must be fiscally sound and it must be a moral document.”

Zulfat believes in a Nashville for all, where everyone is vested and everyone thrives. She says, “Some people are being left out of Nashville’s growth. There are citizens making the same wage now as they did ten years ago and they cannot afford to live in the city they helped to build.”

Always active in her community, she started the Hardeman County Chapter of Junior Achievement in 2004 and continues to advocate for children and young people as a board member of the PENCIL Foundation. Zulfat has served in a number of leadership positions,

including the chair of the American Muslim Advisory Council. She has supported women, serving two terms as State President of the Business and Professional Women, a century-old organization promoting equity for all women in the workplace, from 2009-2011. She is active politically as treasurer of the National Women’s Political Caucus and chair of Day on the Hill, a joint legislative day for several women’s organizations on issues affecting Tennessee women and children. She has also been a speaker at the Nashville Women’s March each year since 2017.

Council member Suara’s work in the community has been prolific and selfless. In recognition, Zulfat has been recognized with the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award and featured in the Jackson Sun’s Twenty Most Influential Women in West Tennessee. She was named the 2018 Muslim Policy Advocate of the Year by Islamic Society of North America; the Tennessee Economic Council on Women inducted her into its Tennessee Womens’ Hall of Fame in 2015. She recently received an award for Outstanding Service to Human Rights from the Tennessee Human Rights Commission and currently serves as a board member of the Nashville Metro Action Commission.

A grassroots activist, who never anticipated a role in politics, Zulfat credits her upbringing and personality for her ascent to the Council. “I grew up in a family with 21 children, including myself. Service is something I grew up with. With 21 children, some are quiet, some timid, some loud. I learned from a young age that I am a loud-mouth and I would speak up for my siblings. I grew up with a father who was always giving, so it was ingrained in me. If you have two dollars and somebody has none, you give them a dollar – that is just what you are supposed to do.”

“Because I was so outspoken and vocal, I was always in leadership positions; even in school, I was the president of the school body. In college, I represented my institution at the state-level. I hope to use these

traits to serve the citizens of Nashville.”

“I was so fortunate to have a great father who believed in me. Sometimes I would go looking for trouble because I knew he would cover me. If I stood up for someone who needed advocacy and I was forthright in my motives, I knew my dad would support me in that. His support built my confidence.” Zulfat says she was lucky and blessed from a young age to have training and mentors giving her life lessons and supporting her leadership abilities.

Zulfat hopes her service on the Council and in the community will help build bridges of understanding between the Muslims and all of the other Nashville communities at large. A legislative matter in 2011 which targeted Muslims mobilized the Muslim community to be more proactive, as “people were discussing us who did not know us. It was important for us to tell our own story.” Suara was a founding board member of the American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) and served in leadership for seven years between 2012 and 2019. The AMACs goals included educating the larger community about the Muslim faith and conducing cultural competency training for law enforcement and other stakeholders on nuances of which they may not have been aware. “For example, if law enforcement approaches the home of a Muslim family and the woman is home alone, she may take a bit longer to answer the door because there is no man present in the home or because she needs to cover herself and/or her hair in alignment with the Muslim faith. Before you break down the door, give her a minute to present herself honorably.”

Conversely, the AMAC also works within the Muslim community to encourage civic engagement, voting, and organizing to amplify the voices of the Muslim community. “The Muslim community has always been active, for example, some of the mosques have been serving the homeless and doing community outreach for decades, but needed to increase their visibility and to a better job informing the larger community of their work. Zulfat has worked with mosques all over the state to encourage Muslims to become more active and engaged to encourage a change in their perception by the larger community.

Council member Suara says a common misperception about Muslims is that the faith subrogates women. “Islam does not oppress women. The oldest university in the world is in Morocco and was founded by a Muslim woman. Another misnomer is that the Islamic faith is incompatible with the United States Constitution. “Islam teaches that I must obey the laws of the land. I believe in the golden rule. Being an American and being Muslim is not a conflict for me.”

Zulfat is delighted to be featured by the Women Who Rock Nashville. “I am very grateful because Nashville is a town full of accomplished women. Some we know. Some are unsung heroes. To be selected for something like this when there are so many deserving women is an honor.”

Asked about how she’d like to be remembered, Suara said, “At the end of the day, by the end of my term or the end of my time on this earth, I hope that people will say that in everything I have done, that I was fair and sought to bring a voice to the voiceless, and that I brought opportunities to those who had none. If I can help move the needle a little bit, that would be amazing.”

Zulfat says there are some great people on the City Council; those who are interested in building equity in the city. “To be an equitable city, we must identify inequities in our city, both socio-economic and political. There are residents without access to transportation and affordable housing, a district in Metro with no public library, neighborhoods without sidewalks, and a zip code with the highest incarceration rate in the nation. By identifying the inequities, we can work together as a community to fix them.”

She often works in solidarity with Council member Sandra Sepulveda as they were both selected to serve on the Mayor’s Task Force on Immigration, initiated by Mayor John Cooper. The Task Force includes immigrants, attorneys, school board members, law enforcement, and other stakeholders. Both she and Sepulveda are interested in the administration filling the Director of

New Americans position as soon as possible. In addition, Suara supported a predatory lending bill put forward by Council member Sepulveda which seeks to ensure that black and brown people are not negatively impacted or taken advantage of.

Zulfat is married to her husband of 29 years, Dr. Rahaman Suara and they are blessed with fi ve amazing children – one pursing a Ph.D. in psychology; one completing a master’s degree in computer science, with a concentration in software engineering; two in medical school, and one who is a freshman high school.