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Okolo Rashid
There are some people I’ve met who make me want to sit up straighter, speak more properly and make sure I’m putting my most sophisticated, dignified, my-mother-reared-me-right face forward. Some people just have a presence about themselves. Even without speaking, there’s an aura of regality that seeps through their pores like they are of ancestors greater than mine. But when they do speak, the wisdom that cradles their words reaches far beyond cognition and makes me want to learn—to hear what more they have to say. This type of people speak genuinely, purely and intently. You can well imagine that there aren’t many of these people.
One such person, however, is Okolo Rashid.
Okolo is the executive director and a co-founder of The International Museum of Muslim Cultures. The museum is like none other. As a matter of fact, it is the only one of its kind in the country, dedicated not only to Islam the religion, but also its culture. I’d made plans to go to see the museum long before I actually went, but my experience there was worth the wait. She and I were the only ones in the museum, and it afforded us the opportunity to talk about practically everything under the sun.
Before envisioning the museum, Okolo made significant contributions to Jackson’s civil rights sites and history projects, the state’s Department of Public Safety-funded Juvenile Justice Project, and she was co-founder and the first president of the Farish Street Historic District Neighborhood Foundation. We here at the JFP aren’t the only ones who think that this woman is noteworthy. She is also featured in “The Face Behind the Veil” by Donna Gehrke-White, the first book that looks at American Muslims. Want to know more about this dynamic individual? Read the book. Or even better, go to the museum and meet her yourself.
— Natalie A. Collier (JFP Chicks We Love, 2006)
