Nikki Giovanni, born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on June 7, 1843, is a critically acclaimed poet, educator, and activist whose work has been at the heart of the Black Power movement and Black Arts movement. John, his grandfather’s alma mater, Fisk University, was honored in the annals of progress and became a member of Delta Sigma Theta. He later returned to the university at Virginia Tech as a university professor. His influential body of work includes the book Black Sentences, Black Debate, and Black Judgment (1968), New York Times bestseller: Love Poems (2009), Emmy-award nominated The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni (1968-1998) and, most recently, The Last Book, scheduled to be published in the fall of 2025. John passed away from cancer on December 9, 2024