Poet, activist, mother, and professor Nikki Giovanni was born June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tennessee. While attending Fisk University, she re-established the campus’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Chapter in 1965. Over her long, acclaimed career, Nikki has received nineteen honorary degrees from colleges and universities; numerous achievement, humanitarian, and recognition awards from government, private, and public organizations, including Woman of the Year from Ebony, Mademoiselle, Essence, and Ladies’ Home Journal magazines; YWCA Woman of the Year; Outstanding Woman of Tennessee Award; Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame induction; Distinguished Recognition Award, Detroit City Council; McDonald’s Literary Achievement Award for Poetry presented in the name of Nikki Giovanni in perpetuity; Outstanding Humanitarian Award, The House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky; two Tennessee Governor’s Award in the Arts and in the Humanities; the Virginia Governor’s Award; Caldecott Honors for Rosa; and seven NAACP Image Awards. She was also the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award. Nikki has been given the keys to more than two dozen cities, including New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, New Orleans, and Baltimore. The author of more than thirty books for adults and children, including the seminal Black Feeling Black Talk/Black Judgment, Nikki is University Distinguished Professor/English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. She continues to read her work all across the country.