Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 18 hours ago
In Conversation with Janice Johnson Dias, PhD
Before the conversation begins, Author Event ticket holders are invited to a special tasting of Down North’s signature pies at a reception sponsored by the Urban League. This pre-event sampling offers guests a chance to savor the flavors and spirit behind We the Pizza. Pizza samples available while supplies last. First come first serve.
We the Pizza tells the Down North story about how the restaurant fulfills its mission to educate and support the formerly incarcerated while serving dope food. A testament to survival and second chances, this cookbook offers recipes for the tender, crispy-edged, square-cut, sauce-on-top pies that are Down North’s signature dish; a whole chapter is devoted to vegetarian and vegan pizzas like No Better Love made with four cheeses and the arrabbiata-inspired Norf Sauce, while the meat and seafood pizza chapter features their most popular Roc the Mic pepperoni pie as well as the smoky berbere-brisket Tales of a Hustler and Say Yes, topped with jerk turkey sausage, roasted butternut squash, kale, ricotta, and lemon-honey drizzle.
The 65 recipes for pizzas along with classic and creative wings, fries, lemonades, and shakes are paired with cinematic photography of the pizzas in their natural setting and out in the wilds of Philadelphia, with lots of journalistic-style photography of the Down North crew making dough and slinging pies. At the same time, We the Pizza provides detailed historical information about incarceration in the United States along with empowering stories from Down North’s formerly incarcerated staff. And with exclusive pizza recipes from renowned chef-supporters like Marc Vetri and Marcus Samuelsson, We the Pizza celebrates ingeniously delicious pizza, as well as the power people have to rise above their circumstances—if simply given the chance.
Muhammad Abdul-Hadi is the founder and owner of Down North Pizza, the mission-driven restaurant in North Philadelphia that exclusively hires formerly incarcerated individuals. Down North Pizza is the culmination of Abdul-Hadi’s thirteen-year vision and is a concept that has long been ingrained in him; through Down North and the Down North Foundation, he is able to impact to the economic realities of underserved communities through excellent food and uplifiting endeavors. Abdul-Hadi has won the James Beard Foundation's leadership award, and he and the Down North team have been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Bon Appetit Magazine, the Today Show, Eater, First We Feast, and more.
Dr. Janice Johnson Dias is an educator, strategist, and changemaker with a Ph.D. in Sociology from Temple University, specializing in urban and political sociology. She is a tenured associate professor of sociology and a graduate faculty member of criminal justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. As president of the GrassROOTS Community Foundation, an international public health and social action training organization she co-founded in 2011, Dr. Johnson Dias leads efforts to empower communities and promote equity.
Recorded October 8, 2025
Facebook: / authorevents
Instagram: / flpauthorevents
Twitter: / authorevents
Podcast Archive: https://libwww.freelibrary.org/progra...
The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees.
In Conversation with Janice Johnson Dias, PhD
Before the conversation begins, Author Event ticket holders are invited to a special tasting of Down North’s signature pies at a reception sponsored by the Urban League. This pre-event sampling offers guests a chance to savor the flavors and spirit behind We the Pizza. Pizza samples available while supplies last. First come first serve.
We the Pizza tells the Down North story about how the restaurant fulfills its mission to educate and support the formerly incarcerated while serving dope food. A testament to survival and second chances, this cookbook offers recipes for the tender, crispy-edged, square-cut, sauce-on-top pies that are Down North’s signature dish; a whole chapter is devoted to vegetarian and vegan pizzas like No Better Love made with four cheeses and the arrabbiata-inspired Norf Sauce, while the meat and seafood pizza chapter features their most popular Roc the Mic pepperoni pie as well as the smoky berbere-brisket Tales of a Hustler and Say Yes, topped with jerk turkey sausage, roasted butternut squash, kale, ricotta, and lemon-honey drizzle.
The 65 recipes for pizzas along with classic and creative wings, fries, lemonades, and shakes are paired with cinematic photography of the pizzas in their natural setting and out in the wilds of Philadelphia, with lots of journalistic-style photography of the Down North crew making dough and slinging pies. At the same time, We the Pizza provides detailed historical information about incarceration in the United States along with empowering stories from Down North’s formerly incarcerated staff. And with exclusive pizza recipes from renowned chef-supporters like Marc Vetri and Marcus Samuelsson, We the Pizza celebrates ingeniously delicious pizza, as well as the power people have to rise above their circumstances—if simply given the chance.
Muhammad Abdul-Hadi is the founder and owner of Down North Pizza, the mission-driven restaurant in North Philadelphia that exclusively hires formerly incarcerated individuals. Down North Pizza is the culmination of Abdul-Hadi’s thirteen-year vision and is a concept that has long been ingrained in him; through Down North and the Down North Foundation, he is able to impact to the economic realities of underserved communities through excellent food and uplifiting endeavors. Abdul-Hadi has won the James Beard Foundation's leadership award, and he and the Down North team have been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Bon Appetit Magazine, the Today Show, Eater, First We Feast, and more.
Dr. Janice Johnson Dias is an educator, strategist, and changemaker with a Ph.D. in Sociology from Temple University, specializing in urban and political sociology. She is a tenured associate professor of sociology and a graduate faculty member of criminal justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. As president of the GrassROOTS Community Foundation, an international public health and social action training organization she co-founded in 2011, Dr. Johnson Dias leads efforts to empower communities and promote equity.
Recorded October 8, 2025
Facebook: / authorevents
Instagram: / flpauthorevents
Twitter: / authorevents
Podcast Archive: https://libwww.freelibrary.org/progra...
The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees.
