Nkemjika Emenike

Nkemjika Emenike is a rising senior at Washington University in St. Louis. She is a native of both Los Angeles and Las Vegas and is a first generation American born to immigrants of Nigeria and the Philippines. Nkemjika is getting her degree in History with minors in African American Studies and Chinese, hoping to pursue a J.D./PhD in History upon graduation. Her interests include Black history, Chinese history, transregional social movements, and Black political movements of the 20th century. At Washington University she has served in student government as the Student Union Diversity and Inclusion chair as well as Speaker of the Senate advocating for better mental health resources, racial justice, and socioeconomic equity. In the past she has worked as an intern on the Civil Litigation team for ArchCity Defenders, a legal non-profit dedicated to combating the criminalization of poverty and racialized state violence. Currently, Nkemjika works as a researcher for the WashU and Slavery project, which helps to unravel the relationship between the university and its history with enslavement, as well a teaching assistant for the WashU and Slavery first-year course. She works as a research assistant and intern for the Prison Education Project which educates students who are incarcerated in Missouri prisons. Her current passion project has been doing community engagement work at Washington Park cemetery, a Black cemetery in St. Louis that has suffered from years of neglect. Nkemjika is excited to learn more about Chicago history, connect with local organizations working on issues of systemic inequity, and conduct research under Dr. Schmidt this summer on his civil rights project.