Making Connections News

Delving into the WMMT archive to hear from two amazing Appalachian women artists, poet Nikki Giovanni and folk singer/songwriter Jean Ritchie. Nikki Giovanni died on December 9th, 2024, at age 81. A native of Knoxville, TN, she is a celebrated African American poet, writer, and activist who gained prominence in the 1960s during the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements. Since 1987 Giovanni has taught at Virginia Tech and lived in Blacksburg, VA. She came to see herself as one of the Affrilachian poets and her writing on race, love and justice have significantly influenced Appalachian poetry. Giovanni is the narrator and the subject of one of the 15 interviews included in “Tell It On The Mountain: Appalachian Women Writers,” a series created by WMMT producer Maxine Kenny that first aired in 2015. That interview is shared in this episode. The program concludes with a feature on internationally recognized folk singer and songwriter Jean Ritchie, who was born in Viper, KY in 1922. This story comes from “Southern