“So many people are trying to close words down. ‘we don’t want a book about slavery because it hurts my child’s feelings.’ Well, they didn’t hurt your child’s feelings as much as it hurt the people who were enslaved, so get over it.”
Nikki Giovanni is one of a few pivotal figures to have witnessed both the Civil Rights Movement and the ongoing Black Lives Matter campaigns. The former was a generational ambition to be equal in common law, and the latter seeks to address systemic discrimination still present today.
For those unaware of Giovanni’s contributions to African American culture, here is a brief rundown: she is first and foremost a poet but is also an activist, teacher, and commentator. As the poet laureate, Nikki has had a profound influence on the fabric of American literature.
Giovanni was a major figure in the Black Arts Movement, a period born in the embers of the Civil Rights Movement during the 60s and 70s, focused on black identity and liberation. The founder of the movement was Amiri Baraka. Other notable figures included Dudley Randall, Rosa Guys, and Maya Angelou. Radical, groundbreaking, and political, the Black Arts Movement time produced some of the most evocative artistic representations of Black culture in the 20th century.
Giovanni was selected by Oprah Winfrey as one of 25 honorees at the Living Legends ball, which also honored her peer and close friend, Maya Angelou. The winner of 7 NAACP Image Awards for her contributions to Black arts, and a Grammy nominee, Nikki’s poetry is continuously praised for embodying the attitudes of her generation in the advent of rapid change.
Born on 7th June 1943, Nikki was raised during segregation in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her early love of literature was nurtured by the Black-only Carnegie Library, a luxury not offered en masse to African Americans. She recalls, “Andrew Carnegie gave funds to build libraries for Blacks. I think he called us colored citizens at that point because the white libraries were segregated. So, it was very good to have a library”.
The Civil Rights Act was signed in 1964, making Giovanni 21 when integration took place. Attending Frisk University, Giovanni Majored in History. Reflecting on segregation, she offers an often overlooked perspective, “The main thing that is overlooked about segregation is, although it was wrong, it was normal. If I may say, I would like for somebody to talk to white people my age about what they thought about having to segregate. I had my students write a story for me [Giovanni was a professor at Virginia Tech] about the white man who demanded the backseat. Nobody has ever said, ‘What did he feel like?'”
Many consider hate a taught mode of thought, a view Giovanni shares. She references the poem Incident by Countee Cullen, “he talks about riding on a bus as a child. And you wonder if the other child [who uses a racist slur] had someone to teach him that, when you see people of this color, that’s what you say. So hate is taught.”
Throughout her career, Giovanni worked closely with writer James Baldwin. In 1971, the pair chaired a renowned discussion televised on Soul! debating the role of the Black man and woman in society. It was later published in a book titled, A Dialogue. The two would ultimately disagree on the responsibilities of the Black man and women, although they shared a love for each other’s intellectual capacity. Giovanni recalls, “Any intelligent American should first read the Constitution, and then you read James Baldwin. It was a pleasure to talk with him. I think men look at things differently from women. I think that men expect women to look at things their way. I once took an egg to my classroom, and I cracked it. I said, ‘what are we having?’ My students looked at me and said, ‘we’ve got a yolk.’ And what does the rest of the egg do? ‘It protects the yolk.’ ‘But the yolk is essential because the yolk is what’s going to bring the next generation.’ I think that what Jimmy and I disagreed on, is the responsibility.”
Keen to share her truth as she sees it, the conversation shifted from reflection to a discussion of her views on the present political divide in America. “We see Martin Luther King standing in front of 100,000 people, but without those 100,000 people, he wouldn’t be there. We watch some ugly things like Donald Trump standing in front of people, pulling them toward something evil—I can’t think of a better word. But again, he didn’t lead them; they led him. But that’s not a leader. Because the leader is going to be the person who does the right thing and says, “I know that I did the best that I could on the day that I could do it.”
The consequences of Trump’s premiership are ongoing. Notably the overturning of Roe V Wade, which occurred thanks to Trump’s appointment of three US Supreme Court justices (Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh) who were anti-abortion. “We are now in the question of prohibiting abortions. Nobody’s making you have one. We’re saying we want to plan our own families. Once religion can determine everything, it’s a bad idea. It just can’t continue that we let one group of people decide what you can and can’t do, what you can and can’t believe,” Giovanni states.
Another trend alarming Giovanni is the banning of certain books across the country, “literature is extremely important. Now we have history. History shows us that every time books are banned, it is an incredibly bad move. Words are incredibly important. And so many people are trying to close words down. People want to say their child will be upset, so ‘we don’t want a book about slavery because it hurts my child’s feelings.’ Well, they didn’t hurt your child’s feelings as much as it hurt the people who were enslaved, so get over it.”
Nikki’s role as a poet led her to collaborate with Javon Jackson. She is set to work with him again on an upcoming album, an homage to Giovanni’s vast friendships, musical influences, and her time in the arts.
As Nikki reminisces on her love of jazz, she quotes the lyrics “where do I belong,” the last line of Night Song by Nina Simone, a close friend. “Nina needed somebody to lean on, but I couldn’t just go to Paris because she was feeling low,” she says.
