Dr. Rose Ure Mezu was born in Nigeria and studied in Port-Harcourt, (Nigeria), Abidjan, (Côte d’Ivoire), Sorbonne – Paris (France) and Buffalo, N.Y. (U.S.A.). She obtained a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 1993, specializing in Francophone and Anglo-phone Feminist Literature.
Activism: As the first female Commissioner in charge of Social Welfare in the civilian government of Imo State, Nigeria (1979-1983), Dr. Rose Ure Mezu designed numerous programs to help the urban population bridge the digital divide.
A tenured Full Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Women Studies, and Africana Studies at Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. An Afrocentric scholar and exponent of Womanism, Dr. Rose Ure is also the founder and Coordinator of Writers of African Descent Speak (WADS): Black Creativity & the State of the Race, which organizes international and interdisciplinary conferences on Africa and the Diaspora.
A widely published scholar, her books include Women in Chains : Abandonment in Love Relationships in the Fiction of Selected West African Writers (1994), Songs of the Hearth (1993), Writers of African Descent Speak: Black Creativity and the State of the Race (1997) with Burney J. Hollis, Religion and Society (1998), with Dr S. Okechukwu Mezu, Black Nationalists: Reconsidering Du Bois, Garvey, Booker T. & Nkrumah (1999), Homage to My People (2004), A History of Africana Women’s Literature (2004), and Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works (2006).
Rose Ure Mezu has also published numerous essays in academic journals and Newspapers in America, Canada, Africa, and the Commonwealth. An Afrocentric scholar and exponent of Womanism, Dr. Rose Ure Mezu is the Founder &Coordinator of MSU Speakers’ Forum. She has been a Writer-in-Residence at several universities such as Penn State University, York, PA and University of Northern Iowa.
An Afrocentric scholar and exponent of Womanism, Dr. Rose Ure Mezu has given countless public lectures on Women’s situation, Pan-Africanism, and motivational issues over the decades. She was Women’s History Month Speaker at Penn State University, York, PA (2005); Black History Month Speaker at the Federal Dept. of Agriculture – Civil Rights Division (2000); Women’s and Black History Month Speaker at Maryland State Public Library (2005, 2007, 2008).
Prof. Mezu received the 2012 Black Women Icon Award from NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Mezu also was a keynote Speaker at the University of London (SOAS) 4th Annual Igbo women’s Conference (2015).