Melinda Micco, professor emerita at Mills College in Oakland, California, died on December 5 in Oakland. She was 73 years old.
Professor Micco was born in Richmond, California, and was a registered tribal member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. After graduating from high school, she got married and raised two children. At age 39, she decided to pursue higher education and enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and a Ph.D. in ethnic and Native American studies in less than seven years.
When she arrived at Mills College in 1993, there was only a handful of faculty of color and she was the only American Indian faculty member. In 1994, Melinda became chair of the ethnic studies department and later was the first Native American woman granted tenure since the college was founded in 1852.
Her research focused on the interactions of Seminole Indians and African Americans in Oklahoma. She authored the book chapter “Blood and Money: The Case of Seminole Freedmen and Seminole Indians in Oklahoma” that appeared in Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds: The African Diaspora in Indian Country (Duke University Press, 2006).