Legendary Poet, Author And Activist Nikki Giovanni Dies At 81

Nikki Giovanni, the legendary and award-winning poet, author and activist whose career spanned nearly 60 years, has died. She was 81. The cause of death was cancer, according to WDBJ, which first reported Giovanni’s passing on Monday night.

Giovanni was working as a professor of English at Virginia Tech University at the time of her death.

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Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni, born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on June 7, 1943, served as a University Distinguished Professor in the English Department at Virginia Tech. Giovanni, an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., is the recipient of hundreds of awards and honors. She was most recently awarded a 2024 Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking for Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.

As a prominent figure of the Black Arts and Civil Rights Movements, she became friends with Rosa Parks, Aretha Franklin, James Baldwin, Nina Simone, and Muhammad Ali, and inspired generations of students, artists, activists, musicians, scholars and human beings both young and old.

The author of nearly two dozen collections of poetry, including children’s books, was hailed during her life for her revolutionary approach to her craft, particularly in the context of Black liberation.

As such, Giovanni’s works were considered a formidable aspect of her activism, replete with themes of both racial and gender equality.

Giovanni’s first book of poetry, “Black Feeling, Black Talk,” was published in 1968 and firmly established her as a necessary part of what was known as The Black Arts Movement in which artists used their works in part as an arm of their activism. The book has since gone on to be featured in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture.

Perhaps Giovanni’s most well-known piece of work is the 1968 poem “Nikki-Rosa,” which addresses her own upbringing in suburban Cincinnati:

“they never understand / Black love is Black wealth and they’ll / probably talk about my hard childhood / and never understand that / all the while I was quite happy.”

In the biography portion of her website, Giovanni described herself as “a dreamer” whose career path was the consequence of happenstance.

“My dream was not to publish or to even be a writer: my dream was to discover something no one else had thought of,” Giovanni wrote in part. “I guess that’s why I’m a poet. We put things together in ways no one else does.”

One of the central themes in Giovanni’s works was the Black family, something that she drew upon from her own upbringing. Giovanni discussed in a 2013 interview with NPR how much her mother would have enjoyed “Acolytes,” one of her more recent books of poetry that was published in 2005 — the year her mother died.

“Mommy was a storyteller, and so, yeah, mommy would’ve enjoyed this book,” Giovanni said. “And one of the things about this book – and I realized I’m also working toward some of the darker side of my growing up because when mommy was here, there were things that I didn’t think I had any right to talk about because they were her story not mine. But now that she is not here, I think that some of my story can come out in a different way.”

Giovanni’s most recent Instagram post, from 2017, appropriately enough, is a photo of her family.

Giovanni was a professor at Virginia Tech in 2007 when one of her former students carried out a deadly mass shooting at Virginia Tech. During a subsequent memorial service on campus, Giovanni shared a powerful speech that included a poem she wrote about the horrific event.

Fourteen years later, Giovanni offered a similarly spirited response to yet another tragedy — the deadly shooting of Black Lives Matter protesters by vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Speaking with New York Times journalist David Marchese, Giovanni held no punches when it came to discussing the teen who was acquitted of murder charges in preventable shootings. When Marchese asked Giovanni about “group identification” and whether it’s “a limited way of thinking about what it means to be a person,” she was ready.

“I sincerely—and I mean no disrespect—think it’s a stupid way,” Giovanni responded. “I know it must be difficult to let things go. But I am 78, and I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen scared white men who shoot unarmed Black men because they say, ‘Oh, I was afraid for my life.’ Or we just let that kid— what’s his name? Kyle?”

“Rittenhouse?” Marchese asked for clarification.

“Yeah. I believe that it frightened him to think that he somehow might lose his life, and yet his life was no more important than anybody else’s,” Giovanni said. “Couldn’t he realize that he was no different from any caterpillar walking on the sidewalk? If you can avoid stepping on it, then it will be a butterfly. But he chose to step on the caterpillar. He chose to stop whatever beauty would be. Now all he will ever be remembered for is that he killed somebody. So we know what his life is going to be: nothing. And I’m glad. Somebody said to me: ‘Nikki, that’s not right. You’re supposed to be a Christian.’ I am, but I’m not that Christian.”

Giovanni summed up her career and life rather neatly in her biography:

I have been awarded an unprecedented 7 NAACP Image Awards which makes me very very proud. I have been nominated for a Grammy; been a finalist for  the  National Book Award. I am very proud to have authored 3 New York Times and Los Angeles Times Best Sellers, highly unusual for a poet. I am a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech. I don’t have a lot of friends but I have good ones.  I have a son and a granddaughter.  My father, mother, sister and middle aunt are all deceased literarily making me go from being the baby in the family to being an elder. I like to cook, travel and dream. I’m a writer. I’m happy.

Giovanni’s survivors include her wife, Virginia Fowler, son Thomas Giovanni and granddaughter Kai Giovanni as well as other extended members.

May Nikki Giovanni rest in peace.

SEE ALSO:

‘I’m Not That Christian’: Nikki Giovanni Sounds Off About Kyle Rittenhouse