Rafiq Character Analysis

Rafiq is the president of the Roseland Unity Coalition, which endeavors to help Roseland’s Black residents take over local businesses. The Coalition was instrumental in electing Harold Washington. Shirley explains to Barack that Rafiq actually grew up in Altgeld and was a contemporary of Will’s. He changed his name from Wally to Rafiq when he became a Muslim and gave up his life as a gang leader. He and Barack work together to try to get a job center in the South Side, but Rafiq proves hard to work with. Rafiq believes that people are bound together by blood first, then by religion, and then by race—and he believes that if people don’t share those commonalities, they won’t care about each other. In his understanding, all Black people deeply hate white people, but many are unwilling to admit that and therefore end up in trouble when they try to work through their anger. Rafiq makes a point to call out mistreatment of local Black families by their Jewish, Arab, and Korean neighbors, which sometimes seems simply to stoke division.