Poet Nikki Giovanni Helped Define The African American Voice | Black History Month

March 12, 2022 Pharaoh

Nikki Giovanni is one of the world’s most well-known African American poets who helped define the African American voice, especially during the Black Arts movement in the 1960s. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts in History from Fisk University, Giovanni’s grandmother died. She coped by writing poems that would later be published in her first poetry collection, “Black Feeling Black Talk,” which sold more than 10,000 copies in its first year. She later attended graduate school at both the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. The Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement continued to both inspire and be inspired by her writing. Her second anthology, “Black Judgement” was published in 1968, which she promoted at the Birdland Jazz Club in New York City. This caught the attention of major publications, like the New York Times. In 1969 she had her son and began to write for children. Giovanni has received numerous honors for her work, including seven NAACP awards, a Grammy nomination for her spoken word album “The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection” and is a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech.

February is #BlackHistoryMonth so throughout the month we’ll be honoring influential African Americans whose stories you might not yet know. Some are pioneers in their field, some helped spark the civil rights movement and all have contributed incredible things to not only black history, but to the history of the United States as a whole.