Julieanna Richardson, founder and CEO of The HistoryMakers, the largest digital archive of African American video oral histories in the US, talks about her close friend, poet and activist Nikki Giovanni, at a GSU reception and poetry reading September 17. Marking the grand opening of Giovanni’s papers at Boston University, the event included a screening of the documentary Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, and a conversation with the filmmakers. An exhibit, Poetry is the Culture of a People: Understanding Nikki Giovanni Through Her Archive, is on view at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Mugar Library through May 2027 featuring letters, photographs, poetry, essays, and interviews focused on the first 10 years of Giovanni’s career.

The event was hosted by Boston University Libraries’ Special Collections and Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center in partnership with the African American & Black Diaspora Studies and American Studies programs, the BU Center for the Humanities, the Creative Writing program, LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff, LGBTQIA Student Resource Center, and the Office for the Arts.