Poem: Mother Afrika's Matriots Micere Mugo A contribution towards the urgent task of engendering Pan-Africanism, our historical memories, our language and concepts such as "patriots" etc. etc. (Refrain: Mother Afrika's Matriots) When we surmount an attack on the unfinished business of historical stock-taking we shall begin with dynamising freezing silences now paralysing our womanful lives. We shall recount our herstory dramatising it and illustrating it with rainbow colours. We will pour lavish libation honouring named un-nameable yet to be named Mother Afrika's matriots (Refrain) We will sing without counting time We will dance hearts touching earth We will map the A to Z of our unfolding epic journey of womanful living We will compose immortal verse in living praise of Mother Afrika' s matriots (Refrain) Nefertiti, the ever poised gazelle legendary beauty, granary of culture whose stunning reign rained sparkling stars. (Refrain) Hatshepsut, grand political architect who artfully engraved plateaus of human development while Europe still slept. (Refrain) African Journal of Political Science Ww Series Vol. 1 No. 1 June 1996 100 Micere G. Mugo Cleopatra, commanderess of matriotic forces strategist of unfathomable battlecraft whose stature not even William can shake or spear. (Refrain) Anne Nzinga, proud, stately daughter of the Matamba unconquered queen of Ndongo, abolitionist supreme who etched liberation anthems across Angola's valleys and hills. (Refrain) Harriet Tubman, orature artist from Afrika's hearth uncaptured guerilla of the underground railroad whose untiring feet carved corridors of freedom south to north. (Refrain) Jane Lewis, detonator of America's dungeons of slavery who engineered high- ways across Ohio's angry waters navigating slave rescue boats under the enslaver's jaundiced eye. (Refrain) Mary Prince, fearless daughter of sustaining Afrikan soil who spat on the virulent crumb-eating housenigger cult burning with each stroke of her pen Caribbea's slave-ridden fields. (Refrain) Mary Seacole, Afrikan of undying Jamaican maroon seed whose womanful vision uncovered all male chivalry myths urging sisters to pilot their herstory to newly aimed heights. (Refrain) Gertrude Gomez de Avellanda of defiant, revolutionary Cuba who composed a resounding feminist choral poem ages gone since highjacked by plagiarizers and forgers of the feminist text. (Refrain) Mother Afrika 's Matriots 101 Sojouner Truth, earthquake that shook pillars of racism and sexism Mary C. Terrell, educator, life-long campaigner for women's rights Ida B. Wells, journalist-activist, source of liberating consciousness (Refrain) Ranee Harper, poetess and orator of melodious anti-slavery tunes Lucy Parson, unsetting sun on black working class life of struggle Ella Baker, weaver of grassroots networks for civil rights activism (Refrain) Fannie lou I lamer, resister before whose vision Mississippi trembled Audrey Jeffers, clarion for Afrikana sisters to combat racial assault Amy Ashwood Garvey, Pan-Africanist feminist who unchained wifehood (Refrain) Mary McLeod Bethune, heart beat of Afrikan war drums for freedom Clara McBride, "Mother Hale", utmost symbol of Afrikana motherhood Queen Mother Moore, Audley of Louisiana, spine of Afrikana struggles (Refrain) Women valiants, whose fighting spirit was a mighty wall of defence surrounding Afrika, stretching defiantly east to west, north to south Yaa Asantewa Mihayra Bint Aboud, Queen Aminata, Mamfengu, Ma Rarabe (Refrain) Sisters who took over guard, fortifying the wall with gallant resistance Nyakasikana Mbuya Nehanda of the undying Munhumutapa fighting stock Me Katilili wa Menza, daughter of Kenya, orator, mobilizer unsurpassed (Refrain) Rosa Parks, whose enthroned dignity no racist bigot could unseat Mary Muthoni Nyanjiru who reignited a retreating volcano of workers Muthoni wa Kirima, last fieldmarshall of the Mau Mau landfreedom army (Refrain) 102 Micere G. Mugo Mother Afrika's matriots will rise with the earthshaking power of: the Aba women the Abeokuta women the Maji Maji women and ihejua kali women They will rise with the roaring fury of: the Dakar railway strike women the Defiance Campaign women and the Black Panther women They will rise with the sweeping force of Mother Afrika's struggling women Our matriots will surely rise with the gun salute of the final chimurenga picking up the moloto that missed the target last chimurenga around aiming with the precision of Afrikana chimurenga women of: Haiti and Cuba Algeria and Kenya Mozambique and Angola Guinea Bissau and Namibia Zimbabwe and South Afrika. They will explode imperialist history's incarcerating myths They will light undying flames of liberating visions They will accurately shape the A and the Z of our unfolding pilgrimage through herstory through living through being. (Refrain) When we surmount an attack on the unfinished business of historical stock-taking we shall begin with dynamising freezing silences now paralysing our womanful lives. We shall recount herstory dramatising it and illustrating it with rainbow colours. We will pour lavish libation honouring named un-nameable yet to be named Mother Afrika's matriots. We will sing without counting time We will dance hearts touching earth We will feast on nourishing visions, nourishing visions of womanful living through womanful herstory. We will map the A and the Z of our unfolding epic journey of womanful struggles We will compose immortal verse in living praise of Mother Afrika's matriots. (Refrain)