RITA OMOKHA
Photo by Fela Raymond
Resist: How a Century of Young Black Activists Shaped America
November 19, 2024
St. Martin's Press/Macmillan
"Bold, inspiring, an act of resistance in itself, Resist is a powerful and personal history. Omokha vividly reminds us that protest has always been and always will be essential to progress."
Jonathan Eig, author of King: A Life, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
"Rita Omokha has written a crucial distillation of a century of activism and the changes wrought by it. These are perilous times and we've never been more in need of a reminder of what has been achieved against even greater odds than the ones stacked against us today."
Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker staff writer and Emmy- and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist
"This book is a crucial asset and resource for today’s society. Resist encapsulates the everlasting and unwavering fight for justice and equality led by the trailblazing activists from decades past who are still influencing young Black leaders today."
Sunny Hostin, Emmy-winning co-host of The View and New York Times bestselling author of I Am These Truths
"With Resist, Rita Omokha has achieved a dual debut as an author. She has vividly captured more than a century of activism by young Black Americans, and filtered that saga through her own experience as a Nigerian immigrant being thrust into a society of ruthlessly binary racial identity. Part history, part memoir, part call to political arms, Resist is a valuable addition to our nation's protest literature."
Samuel G. Freedman, award-winning author of Into the Bright Sunshine
"...Resist is both incredibly detailed and accessibly readable. Omokha intersperses stories of individual race crimes with broader movements such as the formation of the NAACP, steadily guiding readers through each era. She helpfully bridges one time period with the next with the precision of a documentary filmmaker. Overall, Resist is an essential text for anyone seeking to understand the roots of Black activism in America, white responses and backlash, and how activists use the past to inform current approaches."