From Broward Palm Beach New Times (Florida)
Barbara Muhammad Sharief has become Broward County’s first black female mayor. Commissioners selected Sharief, 42, to be county mayor on Tuesday evening.
Sharief, who was raised in the Muslim faith, will be serving for one year in what is mainly a ceremonial role. But as a self-made businesswoman and mother of five children, she hopes she can use her position to bring attention to nonprofits and small businesses in the county.
She was also tagged for overbilling overbilling Medicaid nearly half a million dollars. But that didn’t seem to mar the ceremony.
Sharief has plowed through tough times to get to where she is.
Her father, a clothing salesman, was shot and killed by a would-be robber when she was 14. She and her seven siblings grew up fatherless in Miami. Following the tragedy, she was forced to take on the responsibilities of a grownup and got a job to help her mother pay the bills.
But Sharief’s father left an impact on her. Well-known in the Muslim community and an active member of the Masjid Al-Ansar Mosque in Miami, Sharief’s father had headed a food program for the needy.
This has led her to champion nonprofits and small businesses.
Since being elected to the County Commission in 2010, Sharief has worked on health care and aggressive-dog issues. She was once a Republican but switched parties. As mayor, Sharief’s main goal will be to help small business, buoyed by the slogan “Broward means business.”
And though she hasn’t been in a Muslim mosque since she was a teen, the community has embraced her.
