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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.

Nikki Giovanni

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Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
Great
Lives
Segregation
Needs
Black
Shirt
Time
Tell
Post
Think
Else
Posts
Thinking
Kids
Shirts
Today
Generation
Matter
Anybody
Need
Generations
Nina

More quotes by 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
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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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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.
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It's not a ladder we're climbing, it's literature we're producing. . . . We cannot possibly leave it to history as a discipline nor to sociology nor science nor economics to tell the story of our people.
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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.
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The only advice [for new writers and poets] I can offer is to be yourself: not the self someone else wants you to be, but the self you are. Enjoy yourself and your life. But most of all travel and eat. That's how we learn.
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Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.
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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.
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If I could come back as anything - I'd be a bird, first, but definitely the command key is my second choice.
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And you will understand all too soon That you, my children of battle, are your heroes
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Fanatics are, for one thing, boring and, for another, unreliable. They tend to burn out just when you need them.
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Libraries...house our dreams.
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A lot of people resist transition and therefore never allow themselves to enjoy who they are. Embrace the change, no matter what it is once you do, you can learn about the new world you're in and take advantage of it.
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Favorite poems are like favorite children. We definitely have them but we never tell as the others would have their feelings hurt.
Nikki Giovanni
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I think speeches and fruit should always be fresh.
Nikki Giovanni
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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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Language instruction should start in the first grade. Writing, also.
Nikki Giovanni
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We are better than we think and not yet what we want to be.
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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Some say we are responsible for those we love. Others know we are responsible for those who love us.
Nikki Giovanni