Nikki Giovanni (1943-2024) (in bottom right photograph) was one of the world’s most prominent Black poets. Boston University is now home to her papers.

Arts & Culture

Boston University Libraries Officially Home to Nikki Giovanni’s Papers

Archives of the celebrated poet and author now open to the public

So wrote Nikki Giovanni in “Resignation,” one of many beloved poems the award-winning poet and author wrote in her lifetime. Giovanni (1943-2024) was a central figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, alongside writers like Maya Angelou and Gwendolyn Brooks. Her work—spanning more than two dozen volumes of poetry and essays alone—was heavily inspired by the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.

Earlier this month, Boston University officially opened its collection of Giovanni’s papers to the public. The papers were acquired as the result of a more than 50-year partnership between the poet and BU Libraries Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.

“We are so incredibly excited that the world has access to these papers,” says Jennifer King, associate university librarian for academic engagement and Special Collections. “They’ve really, truly not been viewed by researchers, students, or scholars before. We are thrilled that future generations, as well as Giovanni’s contemporaries, will have the access and insight through her papers that she wanted to make possible.”

The Nikki Giovanni Papers, part of BU Libraries’ Special Collections and housed in the Gotlieb Center, reflect the poet’s vast legacy. 

Giovanni was the recipient of numerous literary honors and a seven-time recipient of the NAACP Image Award. Her autobiography, Gemini (Viking-Penguin, 1971), was a National Book Award finalist and her poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection, earned her a Grammy Award nomination in 2004. In her later years, she authored children’s books, including a Rosa Parks biography, Rosa (Square Fish, 2007). She also taught writing at Virginia Tech University for 35 years. 

Boston University’s Giovanni collection includes photographs, journals, manuscripts, artworks, letters from Giovanni’s personal and professional correspondence, professional records, memorabilia, drafts of poetry, and other writings. Giovanni’s papers join those of other notable figures in Special Collections, among them Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS’55, Hon.’59), Elie Wiesel (Hon.’74), and poets Sonia Sanchez and Afaa Michael Weaver. 

A decades-long relationship

The University’s relationship with Giovanni began in 1970: that year, Howard Gotlieb (Hon.’88)—founding director of Special Collections and namesake of the Gotlieb Center—wrote to the poet to inform her of BU’s interest in acquiring her papers. Giovanni wrote back almost immediately, saying:

That letter “is one of my favorite parts of the acquisition of her papers,” King says. “It offers powerful insight into the relationship between the archive and an author.”

Giovanni began mailing her materials to BU in 1971 and continued for the next five decades. Her only stipulation: that everything would be made available to the public only after her passing. Following her death in 2024, Special Collections worked to preserve and organize the materials. While BU Libraries has previously displayed some of Giovanni’s works, the archival collection opened only earlier this month. 

Now, students, researchers, and artists have unprecedented access into the inner workings of Giovanni and her creative process. 

In Special Collections, “what we try to do, as best as possible, is to preserve materials that not only represent the deeds of a person, but also their humanity,” says J.C. Johnson, a longtime processing archivist at the Gotlieb Center. “We’re lucky that we have so much material from Nikki Giovanni, which allows the public to still experience her and get a very strong sense of who she was. [She] may be gone, but you can read her words and still feel like she’s here.”

Giovanni was an important partner to BU, King says. Beyond donating her materials to the University, the poet visited BU periodically, and she joined Gotlieb Center events marking the 40th and 50th anniversaries of alum MLK’s passing.

“Nikki Giovanni’s decision to place her papers at Boston University shows her commitment to sharing herself with the writers, the dreamers, the thinkers, the artists, and the students in all of us,” King says. “It’s a part of her story that we are really proud to hold.

“Giovanni was so smart, so funny, and so powerfully observant. She really belongs to everybody. We’re so glad to play our part in preserving her memory and legacy.”