Poet and activist Nikki Giovanni died Monday in Blacksburg, Virginia, from lung cancer complications at the age of 81. The longtime Virginia Tech professor was a renowned political poet and speaker whose work sought to uplift the Black experience in the US.
Born June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tennessee, and raised outside Cincinnati, Ohio, Giovanni became a fixture of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s. She penned candid poems, including 1968's "Nikki-Rosa," in pursuit of Black civil rights. Giovanni would go on to write dozens of books and speak regularly, including in an iconic 1971 conversation (w/video) with acclaimed writer James Baldwin. After stints at Rutgers and Ohio State, she spent over three decades on the English faculty at Virginia Tech.
Giovanni was also the recipient of seven NAACP awards and 31 honorary doctorates. She made the National Book Award shortlist in 1973 and received a Grammy nomination for a spoken word album in 2004. Watch the trailer of a 2023 documentary of her life here.
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