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I knew Stokely [Carmichael] and them, but when you got to that, you saw that Nina Simone started to take up their burden. She started to preach for them. She was taking on the burden of I want to tell the people.

Nikki Giovanni

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Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
People
Preach
Burden
Saws
Taking
Started
Knew
Tell
Take
Nina

More quotes by Nikki Giovanni

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I have not tried to tell the people anything. I have shared my views with the people but I have not tried to lead or correct them, assuming they need correction.
Nikki Giovanni
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Now, everything I do, I do because I want to. And I believe the best is yet to come.
Nikki Giovanni
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We [Black people] have always used our creativity to battle and we're not the only ones. Black Americans are certainly leaders in that simply because we were denied education and dealt with enforced illiteracy. But people seem to always forget that literacy is not the only way of learning things or conveying knowledge.
Nikki Giovanni
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Everyone understands that love comes in many different packages and is used in many different ways. You cannot love beyond your years, nor can you fail to love beneath them... In other words, I think you get the love you need when you open your heart.
Nikki Giovanni
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And you will understand all too soon That you, my children of battle, are your heroes
Nikki Giovanni
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If you don't understand yourself you don't understand anybody else.
Nikki Giovanni
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and sometimes I sit down at my typewriter and I think not of someone cause there isn't anyone to think about and i wonder is it worth it
Nikki Giovanni
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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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If culture was a railroad, I can see the tracks running from the Spirituals to the Hip Hop Nation.
Nikki Giovanni
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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.
Nikki Giovanni
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[My] Books are like puppies and children: you love each one for different reasons. I don't actually have a favorite because, if I were honest, I'm always more excited about what is coming.
Nikki Giovanni
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I am proud of the hip hop generation. They are good business people and, actually, good people.
Nikki Giovanni
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go barefoot and be warm all the time not only when you go to bed and sleep
Nikki Giovanni
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We black women are the single group in the West intact. And anybody can see we're pretty shaky. We are, however (all praises), the only group that derives its identity from itself.
Nikki Giovanni
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My dream is a red dress Above my knees High-heel red sandals And me coming over the top The music booming Hi Howie I will say With a lovely smile I don't want to play the game I want to be it.
Nikki Giovanni
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Poetry is the most mistaught subject in any school because we teach poetry by form and not by content.
Nikki Giovanni
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I prefer her [Nina Simone's] jazz period much more so than her folk period.
Nikki Giovanni
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My main strength as a young writer was that I had no fear of making mistakes. I knew I would and I knew I could and would learn from them.
Nikki Giovanni
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If now isn't a good time for the truth I don't see when we'll get to it.
Nikki Giovanni
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Photographers direct the eye toward a particular object. We who write, one hopes, are directing the heart and the soul.
Nikki Giovanni