Nikki Giovanni

Born in Knoxville and raised in Cincinnati, Nikki Giovanni resurrected the banned Fisk University chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the mid-1960s; published her first poetry collection, Black Feeling, Black Talk, in 1968; and released the spoken-word album Truth Is on Its Way in 1971. She published Rosa, a children’s book about Rosa Parks, in 2005 and currently serves on the faculty of Virginia Tech.