Ekua Omosupe was born on a cotton plantation in Yazoo County, Mississippi, in 1951.  She is the first person in her family to complete college and earn her Ph.D.  She began her higher education in 1968 when she was recruited from her segregated N.D. Taylor High School in Yazoo, MS, by academic scouts seeking students with academic potential but no financial resources to attend college.  This ABC (A Better Chance) Program was one of many federally funded higher education programs established under the 1964 Civil Rights Laws signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

 

Dr. Omosupe came to Santa Cruz, California in 1985 to attend the UCSC Graduate Program in Literature.  She earned her M.A. in American Literature in 1989 and her Ph.D. in American Literature in 1997.  Dr. Omosupe is the first African-American tenured professor in the English Department at Cabrillo College, where she taught from 1992 to July 2023.  She has received numerous teaching awards, including multiple nominations and recognition in the distinguished Who's Who Among America’s Teachers in 1992, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004.  In addition to teaching, Dr. Omosupe is an award-winning poet, social justice activist, and workshop facilitator. She has a collection of poems, Legacy, published in 1997 by Talking Circles Press in Santa Cruz, California, and she is looking forward to the publication of her new book, Snapshots of War, by Jamii Press in summer 2026.