Although "Knoxville, Tennessee" does not address any specific issues regarding race, it was published at a time when Giovanni's writing was very much concerned with the question of black identity. Other selections in Black Judgement, the volume in which this poem was first published, make affirmative statements about being black (such as "Beautiful Black Men") and about mocking the white males who held political power (such as "Ugly Honkies, or The Election Game and How to Win It"). A prose poem titled "Reflections on April 4, 1968," about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., begins with the line "What can I, a poor Black woman, do to destroy America?" It goes on to state, "[t]he assassination of Martin Luther King is an act of war. President Johnson, your unfriendly candidate, has declared.....
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