"We have to recognize the greatness of our people. I know we do."

With those words, noted poet, writer, activist and Virginia Tech University distinguished professor of English Nikki Giovanni set the stage for her presentation during Voorhees College's Black History Month program Thursday on the Denmark campus. Approximately 500 people were in attendance, including 50 students from local elementary, middle and high schools.

Giovanni talked about different responses to the plight of blacks by such civil rights pioneers as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Panthers.

"Martin Luther King Jr. is a man who looked at the world," Giovanni said. "His vision was not a vision of what was just going to happen in the United States, because this country is just a drop in the bucket. We're so egocentric because we think that whatever we do is important. Martin looked at class. He would be happy that Barack (Obamba) was president, but he would point out that's not change but the ability to make a change. But he wanted this to happen and worked for this to happen.

"The Black Panthers were vilified by the FBI," she said. "They were saying to the police 'You can't just shoot us in the back; we don't like being shot in the back. So what we're gonna do is take our black jackets and put on our black pants and our black ties and advocate black power.'"

Giovanni said the federal government has practiced a form of financial slavery today.

"(Former vice president Dick) Cheney and that crowd still don't understand that the country can't be 2 percent billionaires and 90 percent poor," Giovanni said. "We still haven't decided that we like and need each other in this country."

Giovanni talked about her role in the bicentennial celebration of President Abraham Lincoln's birthday Feb 12 at the Lincoln Memorial, where she read poetry. She said, "I was thrilled to be invited," especially in light of the 2008 release of her children's book, "Lincoln and Douglass: An American Frie-ip."

"I wanted to show the kids the important relationship between Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and what it meant," Giovanni said. "The two referenced each other often and Douglass was Lincoln's word man and friend."

Giovanni said the way Lincoln dealt with slavery was due primarily to his personal frie-ip with the abolitionist Douglass, who helped lead him to the conclusion that the country could not flourish while slavery existed.

"The Emancipation Proclamation, which was important, didn't tell us that we were free. We already knew that," Giovanni said. "What it did was tell white people to quit trying to enslave us. It was like the Voting (Rights) Act of 1965. That didn't say that we could vote because we already knew that. It let whites know that they had to stop killing us when we tried to vote."

Giovanni also contended that most of the first ladies in American history were not sympathetic to blacks.

"Unlike her husband, Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln was not sympathetic to the slaves, but she was no different than the majority of the first ladies in that they were bigots" she said. "I even made a bet with a friend to name five first ladies that weren't bigots. The loser would buy dinner for the winner.

"There was Jane Adams, who told her husband, John Quincy Adams, not to forget the ladies in the Constitution," she said. "James Madison's wife, Dolly, liked to eat -- and anyone who likes to eat likes black people. There was Eleanor Roosevelt and Jackie Kennedy, and Jackie treated everyone the same way. We don't know about Hillary Clinton yet. But even Lady Bird Johnson was a bigot. Just because she was nice to me didn't mean she wasn't still a bigot. Strom Thurmond was a bigot and he had a black daughter. I won and got dinner out of it."

Another important relationship brought to light by Giovanni involved Mary Ellen Pleasant, a San Francisco female entrepreneur considered "The Mother of Human Rights in California."

"John Brown had stayed at Douglass' farm before leading the raid on the Harpers Ferry armory," Giovanni said. "Douglass got money from Mary Ellen to finance Brown. She was traveling east, found out what had happened and went back to San Francisco. She later sued the trolley company there to desegregate."

Giovanni also made mention of the past civil rights struggles involving Voorhees College President Dr. Cleveland L. Sellers, who "talks the talk and walks the walk."

"I was here 10 years ago in another position when she last came to Voorhees," Sellers said. "Don't let another 10 years pass before you visit us again. We applaud you for your efforts and if we can ever help, call us."

Giovanni's appearance was hosted by the Voorhees College Department of Mass Communications' Division of Arts and Sciences and the Christian Endeavor Johnson Endowed Lyceum Series.

T&D Staff Writer Phil Sarata can be reached at psarata@timesanddemocrat.com and 803-533-5540. Comment on this and other stories at www.TheTandD.com.

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