J Orisha received the 2025 College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) Dean’s Challenge Scholarship, which recognizes exceptional students who have demonstrated academic excellence, a commitment to education as a powerful tool for change, and commitment to leadership and community engagement. It is among the most competitive and prestigious scholarships that the college offers, with more than 30 applications received and reviewed by a committee consisting of faculty, staff, and students. The annual scholarship is open to all CHSS students.
A trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2021 opened J Orisha’s eyes—and sparked a research interest.
Serving as a chaperone on an educational tour for high school students from the Caribbean, J Orisha learned about the long-lasting effects of the Tulsa race massacre in 1921. The group met with historians where one of the worst racial incidents in U.S. history occurred, with more than 300 people killed and 1,200 homes destroyed.
The private tour of Tulsa’s Greenwood district demonstrated how development has made the area that was once known as “Black Wall Street” unrecognizable.
“The more you build, the more you can erase and change the narrative,” Orisha said. “Whole generations can be wiped when space is recreated.”
Now in her final year of the sociology PhD program at George Mason University, Orisha has used her passion of oral and archival history to focus on land memory or “the stories of spaces.”
A graduate research assistant for George Mason’s Center for Social Science Research (CSSR), Orisha’s PhD dissertation—"Collective Memories: Black Placemaking and Belonging in Reston, Virginia"—studies how fellow Black residents “place make” or build community in Reston. Through a socioeconomic lens, Orisha explores Black history in Reston and how Black people find their place in Reston through relationships within the Black community and outside of the Black community.
In 2021, she moved to the Reston Town Center, where she met a lifelong Reston resident who works as concierge in her apartment building. She interviewed him about his experiences as a Black person in Reston and learned more about the area pre-development of the town center.
“It just kind of spiraled from there,” said Orisha, who is originally from Florida. “By that next week, I had a list of people I was doing oral histories with, and the community was really excited about the project. Their narratives compared to what is now is amazing. What used to be and how that land created a certain environment because of development—or vice versa… Seeing how those things change, recreate, or destroy—or bridge—is just really interesting.”
She has conducted more than 25 video interviews with Reston residents, dissecting their views and experiences. Reston was founded in 1964 by real estate developer Robert E. Simon Jr., who had a vision to create a community where its residents could live, work, and play with shopping plazas, churches, schools, along with open green spaces.
The urban utopia was planned to include homes and apartments that were affordable to all, regardless of race or socioeconomic status.
“Reston, along the way, became increasingly more expensive and some of the very folks who Simon had set his eyes on for creating access are now no longer able to live in Reston,” George Mason sociology professor and CSSR director Amy Best said. “It’s a complicated story about how race continues to pattern community life, how racial segregations are often bundled up with how we organize our economic relations. J wants to do the sort of investigative work and the work of inquiry that really honors the voices of community members, particularly Black folks."
Best added Orisha’s research methods consist of community partnering and community trust-building. Orisha is an honorary board member of the Reston Citizens Association (RCA), a nonprofit “non-partisan, action oriented” organization that advocates for its residents.
With the help of the Reston community, she has pushed for a historical marker to recognize an enslaved persons cemetery outside of Lake Fairfax Park in Reston. The unmarked cemetery was threatened to be disturbed with the development of single-family homes. But due to community advocacy, the developers altered their plans to preserve the site. Her research also helped trace an enslaved person in the cemetery to a current Virginia resident.
“If nothing else happens, I feel good at least I helped somebody find a connection to their ancestors,” she said.
That story is one of many Orisha tells in a documentary on Reston and its Black history. She has already presented a version of the film at the Urban Research Hub in CSSR.
Orisha continues to add to her interviews and says she would eventually like to present her findings in an artistic installation at a museum. However, more than anything, she wants to be able to share her video interviews with her research participants.
“The biggest thing is I’m returning it to everybody… so their kids and grandkids can hear their stories,” Orisha said.
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October 13, 2025