Jackson Free Press

Here's the release from JSU:

The Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University is pleased to announce that renowned poet and scholar, Nikki Giovanni, will deliver a keynote address at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 23, in the JSU Student Center Theater. Her talk will open Dr. Doris A. Derby’s documentary photography exhibit, The Black Arts Movement, Black Power and the Struggle for Civil Rights in America, in the Johnson Hall Art Gallery on the JSU Campus, where a reception will immediately follow Giovanni’s remarks.

Poet Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on June 7, 1943. Although she grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, she and her sister returned to Knoxville each summer to visit their grandparents. Giovanni graduated with honors in history from her grandfather’s alma mater, Fisk University. Since 1987, she has been on the faculty at Virginia Tech, where she is a University Distinguished Professor. She has been awarded an unprecedented seven NAACP Image Awards, and she has been nominated for a Grammy and been a finalist for the National Book Award. Her books have included authored three New York Times and Los Angeles Times Best Sellers.

Dr. Doris A. Derby’s photography exhibit, The Black Arts Movement, Black Power and the Struggle for Civil Rights in America, will open immediately following Giovanni’s address with a reception in the Johnson Hall Art Gallery at JSU. Derby, who came to Mississippi with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1963, was a ten-year civil rights veteran. Her work has been recognized in several publications and documentaries. Derby is a contributor to Hands on the Freedom Plow, a book about SNCC women’s contributions to the civil rights movement, and she was Georgia State University’s founding Director of African American Student Services and Programs from 1990 until her retirement in 2012.

All events are free and open to the public.

For more information, visit the Center’s website at www.jsums.edu/margaretwalkercenter or contact the Center’s staff at 601-979-2055 or [email protected].