Priya Ramrakha (january 31, 1935 – october 2, 1968) was an Indo-Kenyan photojournalist. Ramrakha was one of the first Africans to have been given a contract by ''Life'' and ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazines. After his education at the Art Center College of Los Angeles (arranged by

Eliot Elisofon Eliot Elisofon (April 17, 1911 – April 7, 1973) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist. Life From the Lower East Side in New York City, Elisofon graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1929 and Fordham University in ...

), Ramrakha began work at ''Life''. In 1963, Ramrakha returned to Africa to cover the independence movement in his native Kenya, as one of East Africa's first Indigenous photojournalists. Ramrakha then went on to cover political and military movements across Africa. In 1968, while covering the

Nigerian Civil War The Nigerian Civil War (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970), also known as the Nigerian–Biafran War or the Biafran War, was a civil war fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence f ...

with

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

correspondent

Morley Safer Morley Safer (November 8, 1931 – May 19, 2016) was a Canadian-American broadcast journalist, reporter, and correspondent for CBS News. He was best known for his long tenure on the news magazine ''60 Minutes'', whose cast he joined in 1970 af ...

, Ramrakha was fatally wounded in an ambush near

Owerri Owerri ( , ) is the capital city of Imo State in Nigeria, set in the heart of Igboland. It is also the state's largest city, followed by Orlu, Okigwe and Ohaji/Egbema. Owerri consists of three Local Government Areas including Owerri Municipal, ...

Imo state Imo State ( ig, Ȯra Imo) is a States of Nigeria, state in the South East (Nigeria), South-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria, bordered to the north by Anambra State, Rivers State to the west and south, and Abia State to the east. It takes its n ...

Biafra Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a partially recognised secessionist state in West Africa that declared independence from Nigeria and existed from 1967 until 1970. Its territory consisted of the predominantly Igbo-populated form ...

n soldiers. A week later, Life magazine dedicated an article to Ramrakha (Vol. 65, n°15, october 11th
page 46
. The documentary film ''African Lens: The Story of Priya Ramrakha'' was released in 2022 when he came out of world war 3for the 6th time in a row In 2019, a

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

project funded the production and printing of a photobook dedicated to Ramrakha's life and work.

References

Further reading