Institution

<div>Poet Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943) grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Knoxville, Tennessee. By the time she received her undergraduate degree in history from Fisk University in 1967, she was an outspoken activist for civil rights and equality issues, organizing Cincinnati's first Black Arts Festival that year. In 1968 Giovanni published her first books of verse,<i> Black Feeling, Black Talk</i> and <i>Black Judgment</i>. After brief teaching stints, she joined the English faculty at Virginia Tech in 1987 and became a full professor in 1989.</div><div><br></div><div>Widely acclaimed for her verse, Giovanni uses bold language to address social issues based on her experiences as an African American woman. Since 1968, she has published more than two dozen volumes of poetry, essays, and edited anthologies, as well as eleven illustrated children's books, including the award-winning <i>Rosa</i>, about Rosa Parks. Her autobiography, <i>Gemini</i>, was a finalist for the 1973 National Book Award. In 2004, her album <i>The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection</i> was a Grammy finalist for the Best Spoken Word Album. Giovanni has received numerous awards, including the inaugural Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award (2002), the Virginia Governor's Award for the Arts (2000), and <i>Ebony Magazine</i>'s Woman of the Year (1970), although the most unusual honor may be a South American bat species named for her: <i>Micronycteris giovanniae</i>. She is also a seven-time recipient of an NAACP Image Award. A devoted teacher, Giovanni has been a visiting professor and poet-in-residence at numerous colleges, and she encourages students of all ages to express themselves creatively through writing.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

The Library of Virginia honored Nikki Giovanni as one of its Virginia Women in History in 2015.

The Virginia Women in History Digital Trail is made possible by the Library of Virginia and American Evolution: Virginia to America, 1619–2019.

Website

2015 interview with Nikki Giovanni (WTJU Radio 91.1 FM)

Audio

A University Distinguished Professor in Virginia Tech's English Department (located in Shanks Hall), Nikki Giovanni uses her poetry to raise awareness of social issues, particularly those of gender and race.

Nikki Giovanni

<p>In 2018, the Library of Virginia created the Virginia Women in History Heritage Trail in Clio. With there being so few monuments and historical markers dedicated to women's history, the trail offers virtual historic markers that are often pinned at locations where the honorees lived and worked.</p>

This heritage trail was created by the Library of Virginia and commemorates Virginia Women in History honorees from the Roanoke Valley and New River Valley region.



<div>Pearl Fu lived what she calls a “cloistered” childhood in Yunnan Province, a remote, mountainous region of southwestern China that is home to more than a third of China’s ethnic minorities, including the Yi. She grew up in a prominent political family that moved to Hong Kong. Her mother nurtured the traditions of the Yi and taught her children to cook their native cuisine.</div><div><br></div><div>Fu fell in love with all things American. In 1959 she immigrated to the United States and enrolled in college. She graduated from Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory in 1963 and had a brief singing career before marrying C. C. Fu, an engineer. They lived in New Jersey before moving with their three daughters to Roanoke in 1986.</div><div><br></div><div>In 1991 Fu found a forum to express her pride in her Yi heritage. Working without a salary for the first ten years, she transformed Roanoke’s fledgling Local Colors from a tiny street-corner festival into an annual celebration that draws as many as 30,000 people to Roanoke on the third Saturday of May.</div><div><br></div><div>Passionate about recruiting local participants, Fu built the program immigrant by immigrant. Promoting diversity (and Local Colors) every chance she gets, Fu is a common sight at ethnic celebrations, often dressing in the costume of the featured ethnicity. Says Fu, “You can acclimate to this country, contribute to it, become a citizen, but also keep your heritage alive at the same time.”<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

By directing the Local Colors festival, held annually at Elmwood Park, Pearl Fu celebrates the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Roanoke area.

Pearl Fu

<div>Growing up in Salem, Betty Masters (October 8, 1929–June 24, 2015) helped her father develop photographs in his darkroom. She fostered her love of photography at Roanoke College, where she enrolled in a class taught by her father and was one of the staff photographers for the school's yearbook before earning her BA in classics in 1949. Two years later the <i>Roanoke World-News</i> (later the<i> Roanoke Times and World News</i>) hired Masters as its first female photographer. She was soon recognized for the quality of her work, and in 1955 she became the first female judge for the annual News Photo Contest of the White House News Photographers Association, which did not then accept women as members.</div><div><br></div><div>A skilled photographer, Masters documented life in the Roanoke Valley, including presidential visits, sports events, hurricanes, and poverty in the Appalachian region. She won awards in the Virginia Press Photographers Association's annual contests throughout her career, and in 1957 her work took first place in the University of Richmond's Outstanding Photo Series of the Year. She served multiple terms as secretary of the Virginia Press Photographers Association (later the Virginia News Photographers Association) and was the first woman to serve as its president in 1954–1955. As a result of her professional accomplishments, Masters achieved equal pay for her work before she retired from the Roanoke Times in 1992. She remained active at Salem Baptist Church, where she became the congregation's first female deacon.<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

A trailblazer for women in the field of photojournalism, Betty Masters was the first female photographer hired by the newspaper now known as the Roanoke Times, headquartered at Campbell Avenue.

Elizabeth Lee "Betty" Masters

<div>Lucy Addison (December 8, 1861–November 13, 1937) was born at Upperville, in Fauquier County, and grew up on a farm purchased by her father after the Civil War. She received some schooling before enrolling in the Institute for Colored Youth, a private school in Philadelphia that boasted a Black faculty. After graduating with a teacher’s diploma in 1882, she taught in Loudoun County before moving to Roanoke in 1886 to teach at the First Ward Colored School. In January 1887 Addison was named an interim principal. When a larger school building became available in 1888, she was appointed an assistant principal and also resumed teaching. During the ensuing thirty years she was an unerring source of instruction and guidance to generations of African American students.</div><div><br></div><div>In 1917 Addison became principal of the new Harrison School, which offered classes only through the eighth grade. High school diplomas were unavailable to Roanoke’s Black students, and by gradually introducing new coursework, Addison eventually created a full high-school curriculum. The State Board of Education recognized her efforts in 1924 by accrediting the Harrison School as a secondary school. Addison retired at the end of the 1926–1927 school year. In January 1928 the city school board announced that a new high school for African Americans would be named in her honor. On April 19, 1929, she attended the formal opening of Lucy Addison High School, Roanoke’s first public building named for one of its own citizens.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Jenny Woodall-Gainey's sixth-grade class (2009–2010), Lucy Addison Middle School, Roanoke, Va.<br><br></i><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

As principal of Harrison School, Lucy Addison ensured that it received accreditation as Roanoke's first high school for African American students before she retired in 1927 .

Lucy Addison

<div>A Chicago native, Ann Compton (b. 1947) graduated from Hollins College and began her news career as the first woman reporter at Roanoke’s WDBJ television station. Making her mark covering state politics in Richmond, she left in 1973 to become a staff reporter for ABC News in New York. The following year she became the first female correspondent, and one of the youngest, assigned to the White House on a full-time basis.</div><div><br></div><div>Compton has covered each president from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama, while also reporting on presidential campaigns and political conventions and twice sitting as a panelist on presidential debates. She was the sole broadcast reporter allowed to remain on Air Force One as the president flew across the country on September 11, 2001, for which she and her production team won Emmy and Peabody awards.</div><div><br></div><div>Honored many times for her accomplishments, Compton has been elected to the Journalism Hall of Fame (2000), the Radio Hall of Fame (2005), and the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association Hall of Fame (2012) and served as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. In recent years she has served as a national correspondent for ABC’s online and radio news outlets. Compton is a popular speaker who provides firsthand insights into White House politics and the presidents she has covered.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

After graduating from Hollins College, Ann Compton began her award-winning career in journalism at WDBJ, a television station in nearby Roanoke.

Ann Compton

<div>Sharyn Elaine Arwood McCrumb (b. 1948) celebrates the history and folklore of Appalachia through her books, many of which appear regularly on the <i>New York Times</i> Best-Sellers list. Perhaps best known for her Elizabeth McPherson and Ballad series, McCrumb seeks to weave together past and present to change the popular perception of Appalachia. Descended from circuit preachers, teachers, and storytellers, she learned the myths and legends of that region. In her novels, McCrumb presents the richness and variety of Appalachian culture and explores the continuing effect of the past on the present. Most recently she has published two novels on NASCAR.</div><div><br></div><div>Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, McCrumb received her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a graduate degree in English from Virginia Tech. She has garnered numerous awards for her writing, including the 1997 Outstanding Contribution to Appalachian Literature from the Appalachian Writers Association. Shepherd College honored her with its inaugural Appalachian Heritage Writers Award in 1999, and in 2003 she received the Wilma Dykeman Award for Regional Historical Literature from the East Tennessee Historical Society.</div><div><br></div><div>Other awards include the 1988 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, for the satirical mystery novel <i>Bimbos of the Death Sun</i>, and successive Agatha Awards for best mystery novel in 1994 and 1995, for <i>She Walks These Hills</i> and <i>If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him</i>. The Appalachian Writers Association named <i>Lovely in Her Bones</i> and <i>The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter</i> Best Appalachian Novel in 1985 and 1992, respectively.</div><div><br></div><div>McCrumb likens her books to Appalachian quilts consisting of "brightly colored scraps of legends, ballads, fragments of rural life, and local tragedy" that she pieces together to make a story.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Sharyn McCrumb celebrates the richness and variety of Appalachian culture in her award-winning novels, including some that feature the fictional town of Hamelin, Tennessee, which is based on New Castle, in Craig County.

Virginia Women in History Trail - Roanoke and New River Valley Region

Nikki Giovanni

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Backstory and Context

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