| Birth Place: | Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria |
| Occupation: | Journalist and author |
| Nationality: | Nigerian-American |
| Alma Mater: | Columbia University |
| Awards: | Pulitzer Prize Traveling Fellowship; Campbell Award; Society of Professional Journalists |
Rita Omokha (born in Benin City)[1] is a Nigerian American journalist and author. She is a contributing writer for The Guardian, Vanity Fair, and ELLE.
She is an adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia's School of Journalism.[2]
Omokha was born and partly raised in Benin City, Edo State. She is the youngest of four children, with three brothers.
Omokha and her brothers moved to the United States in 1995, joining her mother in the South Bronx, who had been the beneficiary of the Immigration Act of 1990. She has written about her immigrant experience in America, once writing, “I was first christened 'African booty scratcher' in fourth grade...It sounded ridiculous, but it pricked when my classmates would belly-laugh at my expense. This is also my earliest memory of Black America.”
In 2020, Omokha earned a Master of Science in journalism from Columbia University. While there, she earned the Pulitzer Prize Traveling Fellowship, among other honors.[3]
Omokha began her freelance writing career in 2020 and has freelanced for ELLE, The Guardian, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post.[4]
Following the events of 2020, Omokha traveled to “30 states in 32 days” to report on race relations across the country.[5] The project, titled “America Redefined,” was published in ELLE.[6] The 10-part feature was a finalist for the Livingston Award[7] and won the Society of Professional Journalists’s Magazine Feature Reporting award. The judges said, “the America Redefined story offers a personal look beyond the harsh realities of our nation: racism, the impact that the death of George Floyd and the pandemic that turned the world upside down. It’s a journey of exploration and self-discovery as the reporter reevaluated her existence in America and provided context for what it means to live in this modern society.”[8]
In addition to writing, Omokha is a graduate-level educator at Columbia University.
Omokha's articles have been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists, the Livingston Award, the Pulitzer board, the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma,[9] and the Education Writers Association.[10]
Omokha's debut nonfiction book, Resist: How a Century of Young Black Activists Shaped America, will be published by Macmillan in the US on November 19, 2024.[11] It was named a 2024 fall notable book by Publishers Weekly's adult preview: history. [12]
According to an excerpt in Teen Vogue, Omokha said of the book
I trace a century of Black youth activism, from early organizers like Ella Baker in the 1920s to Barbara Johns and Charlie Cobb in the 1950s and 1960s, respectively, to the first glimpses of allyship in The Bates Seven and The Wilmington Ten, all the way to today's generation and the continued fight against police violence and racial injustice. Resist examines this longstanding tradition of student mobilization, a force with far-reaching consequences for this nation. It argues that youth activism is the lifeblood of American democracy, the very essence of the free and enduring nation we inherit today.[13]