Amaka Okechukwu is an Associate Research Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University. She is an interdisciplinary scholar engaged in research on social movements, Black communities, urban sociology, race, and public history. She is the author of To FulFill These Rights: Political Struggle over Affirmative Action and Open Admissions (Columbia University Press 2019). The book is the winner of the Eduardo Bonilla-Silva book award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the Ida B. Wells-Barnett book award from the Association of Black Sociologists, and was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2021. She is also the recipient of the Career Enhancement Fellowship from the Institute of Citizens and Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson Foundation), the Summer Stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and was an African American Digital Humanities Scholar at the University of Maryland, College-Park.

She is currently completing her next book manuscript, tentatively titled Black Belt Brooklyn: Community Building and Black Social Life in the Late 20th Century, which is about community organizing in Black Brooklyn communities during the urban crisis. Her scholarly articles have appeared in journals such as City & Community, Du Bois Review, Society and Space, The Black Scholar, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Social Forces, and more. She has also worked in public history roles for Weeksville Heritage Center and Brooklyn Historical Society (now the Center for Brooklyn History).

Her published work can be found in City & Community, Du Bois Review, Society and Space, The Black Scholar, Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and the City, Design and Culture, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Social Forces, and more.