Nikki Giovanni tells Richmond High School students about Rosa Parks

By JUAN ANTONIO LIZAMA
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
Published: October 3, 2008

Rosa Parks . . .

Award-winning poet Nikki Giovanni knew the iconic figure for 20 years.

Giovanni is perhaps best known as an English professor and writer at Virginia Tech who brought the Hokie Nation to its feet in April last year with the reading of her poem “We Are Virginia Tech” at a memorial service for the victims of the April 16 campus massacre.

She is also the author of an illustrated children’s book about Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat to a white person more than 50 years ago in Montgomery, Ala., sparking a revolution for African-American civil rights.

Today, Giovanni, 65, came out on stage at L.C. Bird High School in Chesterfield County with a red leather bag on her shoulder from which she pulled the book “Rosa” to tell students from various county high schools about Parks.

She also appeared at the Chesterfield Central Library later in the day.

Giovanni addressed the crowd by saying Virginia Tech gets great students from Chesterfield.

“I know some of you make the mistake of going to the University of Virginia,“ she said to laughter.

In writing about Parks, Giovanni said she wanted to focus on the human being, the loving person that Parks was, and to dispel some myths about her. One myth was that Parks refused to give up her seat that day because her feet were tired, Giovanni said.

“You know how many people have tired feet every day,“ she said to laughter. “Revolutions don’t start because they have tired feet. They happen because there was a commitment there.“

Giovanni and Parks met at a Philadelphia airport as Giovanni was looking for a seat to snooze in while she waited for her plane.

Giovanni, who published her first book, “Black Feeling, Black Talk,“ in 1967, introduced herself to Parks as a writer.

“She said, ‘Oh baby, black love is black wealth,‘ and that’s a line I used for one of my poems, because I was just like, ‘Oh, my God, Rosa Parks loves me,‘“ Giovanni said.

Giovanni told the audience that Parks’ bravery led to a 1956 U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation on buses.

Her children’s book has a happy ending, she said, by “having children thank Rosa Parks for the change that she made.“

Contact Juan Antonio Lizama at (804) 649-6513 or