Quote

Being Black and poor is, I think, radically different from being anything else and poor. Poor, to most Blacks, is a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor those who struggle are middle class.

Nikki Giovanni

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Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
Black
Accept
Else
Poverty
States
Accepting
Anything
Struggle
Different
Middle
Mind
Class
Think
State
Radically
Thinking
Poor
Blacks

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Who I am really keeps surprising me.
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If you don't understand yourself you don't understand anybody else.
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I don't have a life-style, I have a life.
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The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans. I say, the trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans.
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I am of the generation of segregation. Black Lives Matter is post. I said today, and I will say all the time, If Nina [Simone] were here, she'd have her Black Lives Matter [T-shirt] on. I think they're great kids. They don't need me or anybody else to tell them what to do.
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You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts.
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Iife/personality must be taken as a total entity. All of your life is all of your life, and no one incident stands alone.
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The only way you can grow is to let yourself make mistakes and create contradictions. As we learn new things, some of our old attitudes will change.
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A lot is yet to be enjoyed. I'd like to stomp grapes for wine. Go to Antarctica. Have dinner with Venus Williams who is the greatest tennis player ever.
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We must invest in tomorrow. And pay our teachers for teaching as we pay our coaches for coaching.
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Death is a slave's freedom.
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There are some things we do simply because the doing is a success.
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A white face goes with a white mind. Occasionally a black face goes with a white mind. Very seldom a white face will have a black mind.
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Who I really am keeps surprising me.
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You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you write with someone looking over you shoulder, you'll never write.
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Language instruction should start in the first grade. Writing, also.
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I am proud of the hip hop generation. They are good business people and, actually, good people. It's strange that the only time the major press talks about them is when someone gets killed or does drugs or something yet these are the same press people who made heroes out of the Mafia and other crooks, you know.
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I think that too many strangers were in her [Nina Simone's] life, and not enough people that she knew and loved.
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