was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and was Professor of English at Virginia Tech. Her publications include The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni (1996), The Love Poems of Nikki Giovanni (1997), which won the 1998 NAACP Image Award, and Blues: For All the Changes (1999). Winner of the 1996 Langston Hughes Award, Dr. Giovanni was also a member of the National Advisory Board of the Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
