{"id":1727,"date":"2024-10-28T19:59:01","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T19:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/miceregithaemugofoundation.org\/?page_id=1727"},"modified":"2025-07-07T12:12:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T19:12:25","slug":"about-micere-githae-mugo","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/miceregithaemugofoundation.fluid22.dev\/?page_id=1727","title":{"rendered":"About M\u0129cere G\u0129thae M\u0169go"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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An advocate for transformative change<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Professor M\u0129cere G\u0129thae M\u0169go was born on December 12, 1942, in Kirinyaga, Kenya<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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She was the third-born child of Senior Chief Richard Karuga G\u0129thae and Mwalimu Grace Njeri G\u0129thae. M\u0129cere was a sibling to 6 sisters, 3 brothers, and both father and mother to M\u0169mbi and the late Njeri Kui whom she both described as her \u201ccomrades\u201d and best friends. At the time of her birth, the world was contending with the crises and consequences of trisecting national, continental, and global events: the Second World War, colonial expansionism, and the rising resistance against it.<\/p>

When M\u0129cere turned ten in 1952, the same year the State of Emergency was declared in Kenya, she witnessed one of the most violent periods in her country\u2019s history. The Kenya Land and Freedom Army, popularly known as the Mau Mau, had intensified its resistance against colonial occupation and brutality and M\u0129cere had just joined Embu Girls\u2019 School, which was at the heart of this war. She would remain at Embu\u00a0in the Eastern region of the country from 1955 \u2013 1957.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Alliance Girls\u2019 High School, 1957-1960<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Though colonialism was coming to an end during this period, the British colonial establishment remained convinced that Black Africans were not as intellectually capable as their white counterparts.<\/strong> To test this racist theory, M\u0129cere found herself thrust in the middle of what would become the educational desegregation project in Kenya, like the Civil Rights movement in the United States and in particular the \u201cLittle Rock 9\u201d. M\u0129cere was selected as the first and only African child to attend Limuru Girls\u2019 High School, then an all-white girls\u2019 high school. M\u0129cere emerged as the top student at Limuru, earning herself a scholarship to Oxford University. To the surprise of many, M\u0129cere declined this scholarship, opting instead in 1963 to go to Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda.<\/p>

At Makerere she studied under John Mbiti, Okot p\u2019Bitek, and David Cook, among others.<\/strong> It was here, where some of her earliest poems were broadcast on BBC, recognition that earned her prominence amongst her peers. Vocal in student affairs and active in the performing arts, M\u0129cere stood out and was recognized as a leading voice amongst politically and artistically active students. Later, she became the first female editor of PenPoint, a literary journal in the English Department.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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M\u0129cere enrolled for a post-graduate diploma in education at the University of Nairobi in September 1966, a program that she would later lament \u201chad a progressive vision meant to produce teachers who would decolonize education, professionals who were ingrained in the philosophy of \u2018education for liberation,\u2019 very much in line with Paulo Freire\u2019s ideas in \u201cPedagogy of the Oppressed\u201d.<\/h5>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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The University of New Brunswick<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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M\u0129cere left Kenya for Canada in 1969 to pursue higher education at the University of New Brunswick, where she was introduced to African American and Caribbean writings, and the growing culture of letters in the Black diaspora. This intellectual climate expanded her connections to the Black Arts Movement, providing her with the opportunity to connect struggles of African Americans to those of liberation movements around the world, especially to those in southern African countries.<\/p>

M\u0129cere became deeply involved with revolutionary movements, fighting for the independence of Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Our research, scholarship, and search for knowledge, should take us to as many sites of knowledge as possible, even if this means moving outside our own comfort zones.\"<\/h5>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u2014<\/span><\/span> <\/span>Professor M\u0169go<\/span><\/span><\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Micere returned to Kenya in 1973, becoming the first East African to hold a PhD in Literature.<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In September 1973, M\u0129cere joined the department of literature at the University of Nairobi as a lecturer.<\/p>

In the decade that followed, she would engage, train, and influence a generation of students and lecturers.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Beginning of involvement<\/h5>
The doctorate in Literature and a post-graduate diploma in education, enabled M\u0129cere to bring her imprimatur to debates on education and curriculum development. This background led to other important roles in the changing pedagogical landscape - as the first Chief Examiner of English and Literature for the East African Examinations Council, both at the ordinary and advanced levels. In addition to overseeing the literature examination system in the entire East African region, she trained and supervised examiners, enforced grading standards, and assisted ministries of education in Africanizing the curriculum. <\/div>\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t
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Elected Dean <\/h5>
M\u0129cere was elected as the first female Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Nairobi. That same year President Jomo Kenyatta died and was succeeded by Daniel arap Moi. In this period of uncertainty, it quickly became evident that the new government was troubled by M\u0129cere and several of her colleagues\u2019 and students\u2019 radical politics. <\/div>\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t
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Attempted coup<\/h5>
She became a target of constant harassment, as the increasingly oppressive policies of the Moi regime disrupted teaching at University of Nairobi, with the situation becoming worse in the aftermath of an attempted coup in August 1982. As efforts to clamp down on activists, professors and students intensified, M\u0129cere was smuggled out of the country with her 2 young daughters, Mumbi (7) and the late Njeri Kui (5), to begin an arduous life in exile.<\/div>\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t
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Exile<\/h5>
M\u0129cere and her daughters began their exile in Canton, New York where she taught at St. Lawrence University. Immersing herself in community activities, she taught creative writing courses on African civilization, and Kiswahili in a Maximum-Security Prison. M\u0129cere also spent hundreds of hours jetting back and forth from one end of the United States to the other, giving speaking engagements in an effort to create awareness about the situation in Kenya. <\/div>\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t
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Move to Zimbabwe<\/h5>
M\u0129cere was hired as an associate professor in the English Department at the University of Zimbabwe and moved to Zimbabwe where she would reside from 1984 to 1992.\u00a0\n\nIn Zimbabwe, M\u0129cere embarked on the production of a progressive indigenous literature for Zimbabwean government schools, co-editing 8 supplementary readers. It was in this context that she began to rethink literature in relation to its audiences. Out of a keen interest in orature and engagement with orality, she wrote one of her most powerful monographs,\u00a0African Orature and Human Rights.<\/div>\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t
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Post-exile in North America<\/h5>
M\u0129cere returned to North America as a Visiting professor at the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University in 1992, while on sabbatical from the University of Zimbabwe. She had taken this sabbatical, to settle her daughters in college before returning to Zimbabwe. After a health scare, she was forced to remain in the U.S. and joined the Department of African American Studies at Syracuse University in 1993 where she served for 22 years until her retirement in 2015, upon which she was awarded Emeritus status.<\/div>\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t
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1973<\/div>\t<\/div>\n\n
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Numerous awards & recognitions <\/span><\/span><\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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M\u0129cere\u2019s nurturing spirit and indomitable will touched communities and institutions worldwide, resulting in numerous awards including:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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