Deliberative Dialogue Series: Lessons of Activism from Malcolm X

Emiola Jay Oriola

Hailing from Nigeria, Emiola Jay Oriola, is the founding program manager for the new Office of Interfaith Dialogue and Engagement at the University of Pittsburgh. In his role, Oriola has been charged with creating the overall skeleton and framework for the office, managing its day-to-day operations, developing, implementing, and executing the vision and mission of the office, and representing the office and University both on campus and abroad regarding interfaith matters. He received his bachelor’s degree from the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, his Master’s degree from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and is currently pursuing his Doctorate in Education at Pitt.

Oriola served as the associate director of the Investing Now program, a pre-college STEM program based in the Swanson School of Engineering. He is an itinerant minister, mentor, author, a spoken word artist/poet, philanthropist, and most of all, a lover of people. Oriola strives to proactively build unity in diversity wherever he goes. He believes the core of every campus must be community, the heartbeat of every community must be the people, and mutual understanding and actual relationship must be the blood that brings life to all community members.

Emiola is the 2014 recipient of the Black Prestige Community Leader Award, 2015 Who’s Who in Black Pittsburgh honoree, a 2016 One Young World US Ambassador and Pittsburgh Magazine and PUMP’s 40 Under 40 awardee, a 2017 recipient of the New Pittsburgh Courier Men of Excellence award, a 2018 recipient of the University of Pittsburgh Leadership Award for exceptional leadership to INVESTING NOW students and families, and a 2019 recipient of the Rising African American Leader Award from the African American Alumni Council of the University of Pittsburgh.

David Garrow

David J. Garrow is the author of “Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama,” a 1,460-page, pre-presidential biography which HarperCollins published in May 2017 and which Garrow began working on in 2008. It became a New York Times bestseller, and the Washington Post named it one of the 10 best books of 2017. A HarperCollins paperback edition was published in May 2018. From 2011 until 2017, Garrow was a professor of law and history and distinguished faculty scholar at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Prior to moving to Pittsburgh, Garrow was a senior research fellow at Homerton College, University of Cambridge.

Garrow is also the author of “Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade,” a comprehensive history of the American reproductive rights struggle. His previous book, “Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference” won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in biography and the seventh annual Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. Garrow is also the author of “The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.” and “Protest at Selma,” as well as editor of “The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson.” He is co-editor of “The Forgotten Memoir of John Knox: A Year in the Life of a Supreme Court Clerk in FDR’s Washington” and of “The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader.”

Ieasha Prime

Ieasha Prime is the director of Women’s Programming at Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Virginia and the founder of the DC Muslim Women’s Conference. She converted to Islam more than 20 years ago after being a youth ambassador to Morocco and Senegal. There she developed a thirst for knowledge that would cause her to sit at the feet of and learn from some of the top Islamic scholars of our time. After having participated in several circles of knowledge in the U.S., Prime decided to pursue religious studies abroad. She studied Arabic and Quran at the Fajr Institute in Cairo, Egypt. Later, she moved to Hadhramaut, Yemen, and enrolled in Dar al Zahra, an Islamic University for Women. There she studied Aqeedah, Quran, Hadith, Arabic, Jurisprudence (Fiqh), Islamic law, Purification of the Heart, and other religious-related learning. She has received several scholarly licenses (ijaza).

The work that she is most committed to and enjoys is the development of Islamic programming, Islamic Studies curriculum, and rites of passage programs for youth and adults. Much of her life has been spent as an educator and activist. She is most passionate about combining Islamic studies, cultural art, activism, and service for the purpose of training leaders to rise above whatever challenges stand in their way and that of the community they serve.

In addition to her full-time work, she is the co-founder and executive director of Barakah, Inc., an organization committed to training Muslim women in traditional Islamic sciences with a focus on modern application. Prime is known for her participation in the National Women’s March and the courses she teaches on traditional knowledge, the challenges of race and gender in the Muslim community and spirituality. Prime is a proud wife and mother of three children.