She herself has served as professor of English at Livingston College of Rutgers University in New Jersey and at Queens College of City University of New York as professor of Black Studies. She has traveled broadly, in Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean, and has received numerous honors and awards. Her record album
Truth Is On Its Way (1971), in which she recites some of her poetry to the background of gospel music, was among the top best-selling albums of that year. Her poetry also demands and has received much critical attention.
Giovanni was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, Jr., in Knoxville, Tennessee, the younger of the two daughters of Gus and Yolande Giovanni. Even as early as four years of age, she was brave, assertive, and forceful, and idolized her older sister, Gary, whom she was determined to "protect." When she was very young, her family moved to Wyoming, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. Her mother and father, who was from Cincinnati, had met while students at Knoxville College. In Cincinnati, Giovanni's mother served as a supervisor for the Welfare Department and her father served as a social worker.
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