Nikki Giovanni — the courageous, beloved, indelible poet, activist, author and professor — died of complications from lung cancer on Monday (December 9) in a Virginia hospital at the age of 81, according to her wife Virginia C. Fowler.

Giovanni was a pioneer of the Black Arts Movement among artists such as John Oliver Killens, Amiri Baraka, Audre Lorde, Ntozake Shange and Sonia Sanchez.

Per The New York TimesShe was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr. on June 7, 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee, the daughter of Yolande Giovanni and Jones “Gus” Giovanni. It was her older sister, Gary Ann, who gave her the nickname Nikki. Shortly after her birth, the family moved from Knoxville to Cincinnati. Gus was abusive towards her mother and this made Nikki angry because her mother accepted his behavior.

At age 15, she declared, “I would either kill him or leave” and later returned to Knoxville to live with her grandparents. She graduated from Austin High School early and then attended Fisk University. She was fired because she often left campus without permission in protest of other campus rules. She eventually graduated with honors in 1967 with a bachelor’s degree in history and attended graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Work, but dropped out. She then received a scholarship to study at Columbia University’s School of Fine Arts, but left school to devote herself full-time to writing.

Giovanni self-published her first two books in 1968: Black Feeling Black Talk And Black judgment. The following year she gave birth to her son Thomas. She talked about her decision Ebony“I had a child when I was 25 because I wanted to have a child and I could afford it. I didn’t get married because I didn’t want to get married and I could afford not to get married.”

She had started giving lectures and appeared regularly on the show Soul! from 1967 to 1972 and had published her memoirs, Gemini: A detailed autobiographical statement on my first 25 years as a black poetin 1971.

One of Giovanni’s appearances was a two-hour conversation with James Baldwin, which ran as a two-part special. It was described by The New Yorker when “two of the most important artist-intellectuals of the 20th century led an intimate fellowship on national television.”

Giovanni held teaching positions at both Rutgers College and Queens College before being hired in 1987 by Fowler, assistant head of the English department at Virginia Tech. Giovanni earned her job and also got a wife. They married in 2016 and retired in 2022.

Over the course of her life, Giovanni received seven NAACP Image Awards and 31 honorary doctorates. She wrote over 30 books, mostly for children, three of which became bestsellers. your next book, The new book: poems, letters, blurbs and thingswill be published in 2025.

She leaves behind her wife, son and a granddaughter. VIBE extends our deepest condolences to the family at this time.

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