André Carson

André Darryl Carson (born 16 October 1974 in Indianapolis, Indiana) is an American Democratic politician serving since 2008 as U.S. representative for Indiana's 7th congressional district. ^{1 2} He was the second Muslim elected to the United States Congress, after Keith Ellison, and is the grandson of his predecessor, Representative Julia Carson. ¹ No source used here names a school or madhhab for him, so his data record leaves his faith as unknown. ¹

Carson was born and raised in Indianapolis and was shaped from a young age by his grandmother, Congresswoman Julia Carson. ¹ He graduated from Arsenal Technical High School, took a bachelor's degree in criminal justice and management from Concordia University Wisconsin in 2003 and a master's degree in business management from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2005. ^{1 2} From 1996 to 2005 he worked as a compliance officer for the Indiana State Excise Police, then in the anti-terrorism division of Indiana's Department of Homeland Security and as a marketing specialist, and he served on the Indianapolis City-County Council from 2007 to 2008. ^{1 2}

When Julia Carson died of lung cancer in December 2007, Carson won the Democratic nominating caucus and then the special election of 11 March 2008 for her seat, defeating Republican Jon Elrod with about 53 per cent of the vote. ^{1 2} He has been re-elected ever since, most recently for a ninth term in 2024, and became dean of Indiana's congressional delegation in 2021. ¹ He serves on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and in 2022 he chaired the first open congressional hearing on unidentified aerial phenomena in fifty years in his intelligence subcommittee role, as his campaign biography records. ¹

Carson voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and for health-care reform, named foreclosure prevention and affordable housing among his top priorities in a district with a high foreclosure rate, and introduced the Jeremy Warriner Consumer Protection Act and the Young Adults Financial Literacy Act. ¹ On foreign affairs he opposed Israeli settlements as illegitimate and a barrier to peace, voted in 2019 against a House resolution condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, was one of nine House members to vote in 2021 against funding Israel's Iron Dome, introduced the Justice for Shireen Act in 2022 after the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and in October 2023 was among the small group voting against a resolution supporting Israel after the 7 October attacks. ¹ In 2025 he introduced a bill to restore funding to UNRWA and the Taxpayer Data Protection Act. ¹

This section sets out episodes and responses as reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum.

In 2010 his Republican opponent Marvin Scott made Carson's Muslim faith an issue in the general election, which Carson won handily, and the Indianapolis Star columnist who reported the tactic called it ugly and shameless. ¹ In March 2010 Carson told reporters that health-care protesters outside the Capitol had hurled racial slurs at Representative John Lewis; recordings posted online did not yield proof of the slurs, and a reward offered for such proof remained unclaimed, as the article records both the claim and the absence of corroboration. ¹ In August 2011 he told supporters that some in the Tea Party movement in Congress would love to see Black Americans hanging on a tree; he declined calls to resign, reaffirmed that he stood on the truth of what he spoke, and clarified that his comments were directed at certain Tea Party leaders and not the movement as a whole. ¹ In 2012 a speech to an Islamic group in which he said American public schools should be modelled on Islamic madrassas drew criticism; he told the Indianapolis Star his remarks had been taken out of context and issued a statement the same day clarifying that no particular faith should be the foundation of public schools. ¹

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