Nikki Giovanni: What Every Black Person Should Know | The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog

Nikki Giovanni: What Every Black Person Should Know

Posted By The Editors | May 21st, 2010 | Category: Hot Topics | 2 comments Print This Post

By Eric V. Copage

As a journalist and author, for most of my life I’ve longed for a canon of black culture, – a list of music, literature, film, dance, moments in history that would form the heart of what every African-American should know. I spent most of my formative years in neighborhoods that were overwhelmingly white, and the purpose of my imagined list was to strengthen my bond with black people, by formalizing our a common points of reference.

Of course, such a body of knowledge already loosely exits – references to Harriet Tubman, the legacy of slavery, the melodies of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn informed the conversations of my relatives and black friends. And, of course, there is Black History month.

But I found casual conversations too ephemeral. Black History Month is so mainstream that it makes you wonder who is setting the agenda for what parts of our history should be acknowledged, and why.

One way to create a black canon, I thought, would be to ask accomplished black artists and thinkers which black cultural gem most inspired them, and their personal story of why.

The first person I thought to ask was Nikki Giovanni.I had a crush on her 40 years ago, when I was a youngster, seeing her recite her poetry on black news television shows such as “Soul!” My admiration for her grew as I became more familiar with not only her 27 books of poetry and prose, but with her political activism, which began in the 1960’s as an student at Fisk University, and which inspired much of her work. So, asking her for the poem that most inspired her, and that she felt Every Black Person Should Know, seemed like a logical way to begin this occasional series.

Every Black Person Should Know. . .

the poems Of DeWitt Williams on His Way to Lincoln Cemetery by Gwendolyn Brooks and Theme for English B by Langston Hughes.

– Nikki Giovanni

This may sound strange, but I was fortunate to go to segregated schools.

I’m sure there were bad segregated schools, but I was fortunate. I had teachers who were committed—black teachers who taught you that we should read black people.

In the mid-50’s I was about ten years old, and I must have been in the fifth grade. I had to do a book report on a living author, and the author I chose was Gwen Brooks. It was a good paper, but I drew a picture of her which was just terrible because I got the nose wrong.

She was an incredibly beautiful writer, and a master of the sonnet. She had won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950 for Annie Allen, a collection of poems about the transformation from childhood to adulthood of the title character.

But honestly, I didn’t like Annie Allen as much as I liked some of her occasional poetry – pieces written on or about a specific occasion. What you get from those poems is her great love for people.

I remember loving Of DeWitt Williams on His Way to Lincoln Cemetery, which was first published in 1945. It recounts the funeral procession of DeWitt Williams past the places he frequented when he was alive, to Lincoln Cemetery, where he was to be buried.

I love the rhythm of the poem, and the way she knew and celebrated this man. He wasn’t a good guy. He’s not a preacher. He’s just – as she said in the poem: “Nothing but a plain Black boy. . .Born in Alabama, Bred in Illinois. He was nothing but a plain Black boy. Swing low swing low sweet sweet chariot.”

At about the same time I wrote the paper on Gwen, I started reading Langston Hughes. What I loved about Langston was that he really is improvisational – so you get all of these variations on the theme.

The first important poem he wrote is The Negro Speaks of Rivers. That poem, if any one poem, started the Harlem Renaissance. But certainly, Theme for English B, published in 1951, was one of the most important poems he ever put to paper. “Write a line and let it come out of you and it would be true,” he wrote, and he questioned, “Is it true for me or true for you?

I think that Gwen and Langston definitely celebrated ordinary people. They celebrated people as they found them. They didn’t feel as if they had to apologize.

Nikki Giovanni, a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, is a New York Times best-selling author, and world-renowned, prize-winning poet. Her most recent book is Bicycles: Love Poems. She was interviewed by Eric V. Copage, author of Black Pearls: Meditations, Affirmations and Inspirations for African Americans.

Nikki Giovanni: What Every Black Person Should Know | The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog