Poet and civil rights activist Nikki Giovanni, a prominent figure in the Black Arts movement in the 1960s and 1970s who was dubbed the “Princess of Black Poetry,” has died. She was 81.
Giovanni died “peacefully” on Monday with his partner Virginia “Ginney” Fowler at her side, her friend and author Renée Watson said in a statement to The Times on Tuesday. She was recently diagnosed with cancer for the third time, Watson said.
“We will forever feel blessed to have shared a legacy and a love with our dear cousin,” Giovanni’s cousin Allison “Pat” Ragan added in a statement on behalf of the family.
Watson and author and poet Kwame Alexander said they recently sat by Giovanni's side along with their family and close friends and “chatted about how much we learned about life from her, how lucky we were to have Nikki guide us.” and taught, love us.”
“We will forever be grateful for the unconditional time she gave to us and to all her literary children throughout the writing world,” Alexander said in the statement.
Giovanni, born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr., used her voice as a poet to address issues of black identity and black liberation. Best known for her outspoken advocacy and charismatic performances, she was a friend of wordsmiths Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. She also befriended other cultural iconoclasts, including Rosa Parks, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone and Muhammad Ali.
“My dream wasn't to publish or even become a writer: my dream was to discover something no one else had thought of. I think that's why I'm a poet. We put things together in a way that no one else can,” Giovanni wrote on their website.
Giovanni was named after her mother and was born on June 7, 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee. She had an older sister, Gary Ann. Her family later moved north and she spent most of her childhood in Cincinnati – a time she described in her writings as turbulent because her father was physically abusive to her mother.
Giovanni returned to Nashville in 1961 to attend Fisk, a historically black university, where she studied history. A voracious reader since childhood, she was accepted at an early age, even before she graduated high school. Giovanni edited the university's literary magazine and helped establish the campus branch of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Associated Press said.
But after just one semester she was expelled from school because she had a contentious relationship with one of the school's deans due to her political involvement and her resistance to the school's strict rules and curfew. Three years later, she re-enrolled with a new dean, who agreed to expunge her record.
She graduated in 1967 and moved back to Cincinnati, where she edited a local arts magazine and organized Cincinnati's first Black Arts Festival.
In 1968 she self-published her first volume of poetry, “Black Feeling Black Talk.” / Black Judgment.” Her poems grew out of her feelings about the assassinations of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X, as well as the death of her grandmother.
In one of Giovanni's early poems, “Reflections on April 4, 1968,” marking the day King was assassinated, she wrote, “What can I, a poor black woman, do to destroy America?” This is one question, with corresponding variations, posed in every black heart.” Her other works, including “A Short Essay of Affirmation Explaining Why,” “Of Liberation” and “A Litany for Peppe,” were considered militant by the AP Calls to overthrow white power are described.
In addition to her adult poetry, she has published two films, 13 books of poetry for children, and 10 recordings, including her Grammy-nominated The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. She was a frequent guest on the PBS talk show “Soul.” A film about her life, “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023 and also won an Emmy Award. The film uses vérité and archival images to give the audience a glimpse into Giovanni's mind.
“A poem is not so much read as navigated,” Giovanni wrote in her 2013 book “Chasing Utopia.” “We go from point to point and discover a new horizon, a change of light or laughter, an exhilaration of newness that we had previously missed.” Even well-known or perhaps particularly familiar poems awaken the excitement of the first night, the first meeting, of first love…when you look at it and review it.”
After teaching at a few universities domestically and giving guest lectures abroad, she was recruited by an English professor named Virginia Fowler to teach creative writing at Virginia Tech.
“We are deeply saddened by the news of Nikki Giovanni’s passing,” the university said Tuesday X (formerly Twitter). “Nikki will be remembered not only as an acclaimed poet and activist, but also for the legendary impact she made during her 35 years at Virginia Tech.”
Nikki Giovanni recites her poem “We Are Virginia Tech” during the English department's graduation ceremony in May 2007 on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia.
(Steve Helber/Associated Press)
In 2007, this university experienced one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history, with 32 people killed and 17 injured on campus. The shooter – who was also killed – was a former student of Giovanni's, and she had previously alerted school authorities to his disturbing behavior in her class. Giovanni, a former creative writing instructor, said she took some of his writing to the school's dean and told him she could no longer teach him.
After the tragedy, she was instrumental in mobilizing people and restoring morale to a traumatized student body.
“I couldn’t let him destroy my class,” she said The times in 2007. She provided part of the convocation address at the graduation ceremony this school year to thunderous applause.
“We will win! / We will prevail! / We will prevail! / We are Virginia Tech,” she said at the ceremony.
As her spouse, Fowler has become an expert and preserver of Giovanni's work and legacy. In an interview with Fight and the Fiddle, Giovanni described how Fowler was a major support and that she was “so happy to have found Ginney.”
“Her grandmother was the most important person to her,” Fowler said. “Their home in Cincinnati was not happy because Nikki found out she had to leave or kill (her father). She moved in with her grandmother. She asked if she could stay.”
As Giovanni lived, so she wrote. She broke cultural norms and gave birth to her only child, Thomas Watson Giovanni, in 1969 at age 25 because she “wanted to have a baby and I could afford to have a baby.” She told Ebony magazine that she didn't want to get married and “could afford not to get married.” In her extended autobiographical statement “Gemini” from 1971, she described her life as a young single mother, which was taboo at the time.
Nikki Giovanni appears at the 2015 U.S. Postal Service Maya Angelou Forever stamp unveiling in Washington, DC
(Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press)
“Their lives are Black lives,” said L. Lamar Wilson, who was mentored by Giovanni. “She documented it in every art form: film, television… from the 1940s to today.” Wilson is now a published poet and professor at Florida State University.
Wilson was working as a reporter and editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution when he moved to cover Giovanni's appearance in the city in 2007. During her interview, she interrupted him and invited him to apply to the creative writing master's program at Virginia Tech.
“Nikki changed the course of my life. And I'm one of at least 25 people I could name to you, very famous, prominent writers, who have the same story,” he said. “She looked after us, she was our friend, she was our surrogate mother when we needed her. She was our disciplinarian when we needed her, warning us about the pitfalls and pitfalls of publishing and academia.”
As an educator, Giovanni is credited with helping to produce a younger generation of black writers.
Giovanni planned a celebration for The Bluest Eye author Morrison before she passed away in 2019. At the celebration, people read their favorite excerpts from her work, which moved Morrison to tears.
Winner of seven NAACP awards and countless other awards for her achievements in poetry, Giovanni helped aspiring writers.
“I think she's most proud of the fact that she opened the door for many future … writers who came after her. They were able to go after her because she opened doors,” Fowler said. “She’s generous, she helps other people, she’s helped other artists, and that’s pretty unusual.”
In 2015, Times columnist Sandy Banks interviewed Giovanni following the Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Missouri.
“I am not a guru. I don’t have any answers,” Giovanni said when Banks asked for guidance for young writers. “Just trust your own voice. And continue to explore the things that interest you.
“I can only be a good Nikki. All you can do is be yourself,” she said.
Nikki Giovanni delivers closing remarks at a Virginia Tech rally honoring the victims of a mass shooting on campus in 2007.
(Steve Helber/Associated Press)
Longtime friend Joanne Gabbin — executive director of Furious Flower, the nation's first academic center for black poetry — believes Giovanni was most proud of her relationship with her grandmother. “Family is very important. I think it goes back to what her grandmother shared with her, what her grandmother taught her, the values her grandmother instilled in her,” Gabbin told The Times. “She had promised her grandmother that whatever she did would be excellent.”
In 2016, Gabbin and Giovanni, who had been friends for more than 30 years, were previewed at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC
Gabbin said that while touring the museum, Giovanni came across a “huge portrait” of himself on display in the exhibit that has gone down in history as a literary legend.
Giovanni leaves Fowler; her son Thomas; and her granddaughter Kai.
Kayembe is a former Times fellow. The Associated Press contributed to this report.