1943- Yolande Cornelia Giovanni was born on June 7 the Knoxville General Hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee. Moved to Cincinnati, Ohio which is the home town of her father.
1960-1961- Giovanni enrolles in FiskUniversity in Nashville. She goes to Knoxville to visit her family for Thanksgiving without permission fromn her Dean. She returns and is later expelled from Fisk University on Febuary 1.
1961-1963- She moves in with her parents in Cincinnati and applied for a job at Walgreens. She also takes care of her nephew Christophor. She enrolls in courses at the University of Cincinnati and does volunteer work with her mother's clients. They later move to Lincoln Height followed by the death of her grandfather.
1964-1966- She re-enrolls in Fisk University in the fall of 1964. This times there was a different Dean. In the spring of 1966 she meets Dudley Randell at the First Writers Conference at Fisk.
1967-1968- Moves back to Cincinnati and completed her undergraduate work in December and recieved her B.A. in History with honor on Jan 28. She borrows money to publish her first poetry book Black Feeling, Black Talk. Dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania. Uses the money she made from her first book to publish Black Judgement.
1969- Begins teaching at Queens College. Gives birth to her only child Thomas Watson Giovanni. Returns to New York and begins teaching at Livingston College.
1970-1972- She privatley publishes Night Comes Softley. Publishes autobiography Gemini and poems for children, Spin a Soft Black Song. Records Truth is On Its Way with the New York Community Choir. Ebony magazine names her Woman of the Year. Published Truth which sold more than 100,000 copies in the first 6 months. Traveled to Africa and London. Publishs My House. Truth is On Its Way recieve the N.A.T.R.A. award for Best Spoken Word Album.
1973- Publishes Ego Tripping and Other Poems for Young Readers and A Dialogue: James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni.Gemini is nominated for a National Book Award. Meets Margaret Walker in Washington, D.C. Receives a Woman of the Year Award from the Ladies’ Home Journal; the ceremony, held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, airs nationwide and Giovanni is criticized for accepting the award. She is initiated as an honorary member into Delta Sigma Theta, Inc.
1974-1977- Publishes A Poetic Equation: Conversations Between Nikki Giovanni and Margaret Walker (1974) and The Women and the Men (1975). Releases the albums The Way I Feel (1975), Legacies (1976), and The Reason I Like Chocolate (1976). Receives honorary doctorates from Ripon University, the University of Maryland/Princess Anne Campus, and Smith College. Continues to write essays for Encore American & World-Wide News. Lectures extensively at colleges and universities across the country. Travels to Rome for the United Nations’ First World Food Conference (1974).
1978-1982- Publishes Cotton Candy On A Rainy Day and releases album with same title (1978). Publishes Vacation Time in 1979. Her father has a stroke. She moves back into her parents house in Lincoln Heights with her son. She takes cares of her son and parents and has to pay alot for medical bills and now has less time to write. Named an Honorary Commissioner for the President’s Commission on the International Year of the Child. Her father dies on 8 June 1982, one day after her thirty-ninth birthday.
1983-1995- She accepts permanent postion at as a English Professor at Virginia Tech. In mid- January she is diagnosed with lung cancer. She travels back to Cincinnati, Ohio, for second opinion and has surgery at Jewish Hospital. She receives honorary doctorates from Albright College and Cabrini College. Is a week-long writer-in-residence for the National Book Foundation’s Family Literacy Program at the Family Academy in Harlem. In summer is Visiting Professor at Indiana University/Kokomo.
1996- Present- Published many more volumes of work and more poetry books. She is still currently a Professor at Virginia Tech.
