CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A diverse group of Charlotte community and faith leaders will host a public interfaith forum Wednesday, March 25, exploring connections between the Black experience and the Palestinian cause.

The event, titled “The Black Experience Leadership, Palestine and Truth Telling,” is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church and is presented by the church’s Social Justice Ministry. It is the second installment of a series that began in February with a panel called “Beyond Weaponization: Black History, Christian and Muslim Solidarity, and Palestine.”

The panel will include the Rev. Dr. Paul McAllister, Jibril Hough of the Islamic Center of Charlotte, Holocaust scholar Dr. Barry Trachtenberg of Wake Forest University’s Center for Holocaust and Jewish Studies, and activist Laila El. Ali of Charlotte United for Palestine.

Organizers say the format will allow each panelist three minutes for an opening statement before opening the floor to audience questions.

“We want to hear from the people and we want to get somewhere,” Hough said. “They may come with opposing views and sometimes that’s necessary to get to a better place.”

The panel draws historical connections between the Black freedom struggle and the Palestinian cause, referencing figures including Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Hough said the event is designed to push past the surface-level dialogue that often characterizes interfaith gatherings.

“A lot of times when we get together as interfaith congregations, people like to hold hands and sing Kumbaya and not really speak to what’s going on in the world,” he said. “We want to have those honest conversations — sometimes these conversations are not easy to have, but we have to have them.”

McAllister, a board member of the Mecklenburg Interfaith Network, said both he and Hough arrived to their interview Tuesday wearing keffiyehs (a traditional Palestinian scarf) — a moment he described as instinctive.

“Following our instincts and living by our faith is so essential to sending the right messages at the right moment,” McAllister said.

He added that the event is not meant to challenge anyone’s beliefs but to build empathy across communities.

“We’re not asking for persons to abandon what they think and what they’re committed to,” McAllister said. “We’re challenging one another to listen and to have a heart, and to practice that kind of empathy that is expressed in all of the Abrahamic faiths.”

The first panel in the series was well-received, according to organizers. The event is free and open to the public.