Rita Omokha

Rita Omokha is a journalist and essayist in New York City. Her writing on race and vulnerable communities has appeared in Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, Elle, Glamour, The Hechinger Report, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, WIRED, among other publications and outlets. She has written about policing in America, federal inaction on growing numbers of Covid orphans, and missing and murdered Indigenous women.

She was born in Nigeria and received a bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University, and a master’s from Columbia University. She lives in Manhattan.

Recent Posts by Rita Omokha

  • They Were Sons

    Judges praised "They Were Sons" for painting “a full picture of the men who died and what it means to lose them,” and for showing the reader the “human shaped holes in the lives of their mothers.” They called the “powerful, first-person storytelling” “unfiltered and unvarnished,” and praised its ability to “capture pride and pain at the same time,” providing a “sense of all that lingers for families after the headlines and social media outrage passes.” They applauded Rita Omokha's “self-effacement and courage,” calling her work “a profound exercise of journalistic responsibility” and “an act of refusal of the easy reporting path.” Originally published by Vanity Fair on May 6, 2021.

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