Nikki Giovanni Remembers 1963 with a New Poem

Other Nikki Giovanni love on this blog. Go on, You’ll find it.

By Bryce Stucki

Nikki Giovanni is one of America’s most famous poets. She is a New York Times bestseller, a one-time Woman of the Year winner from Mademoiselle and Ebony magazines, a recipient of the first Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award, and a holder of a Langston Hughes Medal. She wrote that “writing is … what I do to justify the air I breathe.” Below is a poem she penned for the Prospect, reflecting on the March on Washington 50 years later.

We, too

I was home

In Lincoln Heights

Named for Abraham

As many other small black

Communities are

Only 20 years old

Not cowardly

I had picketed Rich’s

Department Store in Knoxville

I sat in with Fisk University

In Nashville

But not all that Brave

Mommy didn’t want

Me to go

Neither did my father and I wondered

Would it matter

50 years later I know

It…

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