Nikki Giovanni has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal and the NAACP Image Award.
46 Facts About Nikki Giovanni
2.
Nikki Giovanni has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection.
3.
Poems such as "Knoxville, Tennessee" and "Nikki Giovanni-Rosa" have been frequently re-published in anthologies and other collections.
4.
Nikki Giovanni has received numerous awards and holds 27 honorary degrees from various colleges and universities.
5.
Nikki Giovanni has been given the key to over two dozen cities.
6.
Nikki Giovanni has been honored with the NAACP Image Award seven times.
7.
Nikki Giovanni is proud of her Appalachian roots and works to change the way the world views Appalachians and Affrilachians.
8.
Nikki Giovanni has taught at Queens College, Rutgers, and Ohio State, and was a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech until September 1,2022.
9.
Nikki Giovanni immediately clashed with the Dean of Women, Ann Cheatam, and was expelled after neglecting to obtain the required permission from the Dean to leave campus and travel home for Thanksgiving break.
10.
Nikki Giovanni moved back to Knoxville, where she worked at a Walgreens drug store and helped care for her nephew, Christopher.
11.
In 1964, Nikki Giovanni spoke with the new Dean of Women at Fisk University, Blanche McConnell Cowan, who urged her to return to Fisk that fall.
12.
In 1968, Nikki Giovanni attended a semester at University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work toward an MSW and then moved to New York City.
13.
Nikki Giovanni briefly attended Columbia University School of the Arts toward an MFA in poetry and privately published Black Feeling, Black Talk.
14.
In 1969, Nikki Giovanni began teaching at Livingston College of Rutgers University.
15.
Nikki Giovanni was an active member of the Black Arts Movement beginning in the late 1960s.
16.
Nikki Giovanni noted that the birth of her son helped her to realize that children have different interests and require different content than adults.
17.
Nikki Giovanni has received the NAACP Image Award several times, received 20 honorary doctorates and various other awards, including the Rosa Parks and the Langston Hughes Award for Distinguished Contributions to Arts and Letters.
18.
Nikki Giovanni holds the key to several different cities, including Dallas, Miami, New York City, and Los Angeles.
19.
Nikki Giovanni is a member of the Order of the Eastern Star, she has received the Life Membership and Scroll from the National Council of Negro Women, and is an Honorary Member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
20.
Nikki Giovanni was diagnosed with lung cancer in the early 1990s and underwent numerous surgeries.
21.
In 2002, Nikki Giovanni spoke in front of NASA about the need for African Americans to pursue space travel, and later published Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems, which dealt with similar themes.
22.
Nikki Giovanni has been honored for her life and career by the HistoryMakers, along with being the first person to receive the Rosa L Parks Women of Courage Award.
23.
Nikki Giovanni was awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor from Dillard University in 2010.
24.
In 2015, Nikki Giovanni was named one of the Library of Virginia's "Virginia Women in History" for her contributions to poetry, education, and society.
25.
Nikki Giovanni gave an extended interview to Bryan Knight's Tell A Friend Podcast where she gave an assessment of her life and legacy.
26.
Nikki Giovanni expressed that she usually feels very comfortable delivering speeches, but worried that her emotion would get the best of her.
27.
Nikki Giovanni thought that ending with a thrice-repeated "We will prevail" would be anticlimactic, and she wanted to connect back with the beginning, for balance.
28.
Nikki Giovanni is commonly praised as one of the best African-American poets emerging from the 1960s Black Power and Black Arts Movements.
29.
Nikki Giovanni's poetry is described as being "politically, spiritually, and socially aware".
30.
Evie Shockley describes Nikki Giovanni as "epitomizing the defiant, unapologetically political, unabashedly Afrocentric, BAM ethos".
31.
Not only did Nikki Giovanni write about racial equality, but she advocated for gender equality, as well.
32.
Nikki Giovanni herself takes great pride in being a "Black American, a daughter, mother, and a Professor of English".
33.
Nikki Giovanni is known for her use of African American Vernacular English.
34.
Nikki Giovanni has since written more than two dozen books, including volumes of poetry, illustrated children's books, and three collections of essays.
35.
Nikki Giovanni's work is said to speak to all ages, and she strives to make her work easily accessible and understood by both adults and children.
36.
Nikki Giovanni's poetry reaches more readership through her active engagement with live audiences.
37.
Nikki Giovanni gave her first public reading at the New York City jazz spot, Birdland.
38.
Nikki Giovanni began to travel all around the world and speak and read to a wider audience.
39.
Nikki Giovanni is often interviewed regarding themes pertaining to her poetry such as gender and race.
40.
Nikki Giovanni collected her essays in the 1988 volume Sacred Cows.
41.
Nikki Giovanni's collection Bicycles: Love Poems is a companion work to her 1997 Love Poems.
42.
Nikki Giovanni featured on the track "Ego Trip by Nikki Giovanni" on Blackalicious's 2000 album Nia.
43.
Nikki Giovanni was commissioned by National Public Radio's All Things Considered to create an inaugural poem for President Barack Obama.
44.
Nikki Giovanni was part of the 2016 Writer's Symposium by the Sea at Loma Nazarene University.
45.
In October 2017 Nikki Giovanni published her newest collection A Good Cry: What We Learn From Tears and Laughter.
46.
Nikki Giovanni's Big-Eared Bat, known as Micronycteris giovanniae, was named in her honor in 2007.