280 POET, SCHOLAR, ACTIVIST NIKKI GIOVANNI TO SPEAK AT MTSU

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Feb. 13, 2008
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Dr. Sekou Franklin, 615-904-8232
Luther Buie, 615-898-2987

POET, SCHOLAR, ACTIVIST NIKKI GIOVANNI TO SPEAK AT MTSU
Inspirational Professor Tackles Topic of Race at Black History Month Event

(MURFREESBORO) – Distinguished poet and scholar Nikki Giovanni will speak on “Race in the 21st Century” at 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 21, in Room 221 of MTSU’s Learning Resources Center. Her address, an event in MTSU’s continuing observance of Black History Month, is free and open to the public.
A Knoxville native, Giovanni grew up in Lincoln Heights, Ohio. She is a 1968 alumna of Fisk University in Nashville with a degree in history. After graduating from Fisk, she attended the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.
Her first book of poetry, Black Feeling, Black Talk, was published in 1968. She is the author of some 30 books. Her autobiography, Gemini, was a finalist for the National Book Award. In 2007, Giovanni became the first poet to receive the Carl Sandburg Literary Award for lifetime achievement.
Giovanni’s other honors and awards include more than 20 honorary degrees, a life membership and scroll from the National Council of Negro Women, and NAACP Image Awards for her books Love Poems, Blues: For All the Changes, and Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea. She has been named woman of the year by Mademoiselle, Ladies’ Home Journal, Ebony and Essence magazines.
A Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech, Giovanni became a voice of inspiration and renewal at an April 17, 2007 convocation memorializing the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre. She said, in part:

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly. We are brave enough
to bend to cry and sad enough to know we must laugh again. We are Virginia Tech. … The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches
out with open hearts and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than
we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the possibility and the imagination. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness.
In fall 2007, Giovanni returned to Fisk University as a Visiting Distinguished Professor, mentoring aspiring young authors.
For more information on Giovanni’s visit to MTSU, contact the co-chairs of the MTSU Black History Month Committee, Dr. Sekou Franklin at 615-904-8232 or Luther Buie at 615-898-2987. To learn more about other Black History Month events, go to http://www.mtsu.edu/~aahm.

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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For a color jpeg of Nikki Giovanni, contact Gina Logue in the MTSU Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-5081 or gklogue@mtsu.edu.