Interview with Nikky Finney, July 8, 2001

Interview Summary

Finney was born in Conway, South Carolina. She is interested in family history, and photographs of her family. Finney's parents participated in the civil rights movement. She was not allowed to participate directly, so she chose to participate by writing about her ideas. Finney recounts her experience in an integrated school at the very beginning of racial integration in the South. Finney discusses teachers who influenced her in her writing. Finney's father practiced both civil law and criminal law. Later, he became a SC state legislator, who became a circuit judge, and eventually went on to serve as the chief justice of the SC supreme court. Finney wanted to attend a historically Black college, and so her father drove her to visit Talladega. Finney tells the story of how she asked the poet Nikki Giovanni to look at her work. Giovanni was very encouraging. Toni Cade Bambara was also encouraging. Finney went to graduate school in Atlanta. She disagreed with her professors about her thesis. Finney went back to Talladega as a photographer, and then later went to Africa as a journalist.

Interview Keyword

Nikky Finney Lynn Carol Finney Poetry Segregation Integration

Interview LC Subject

Authors, American--Kentucky Intellectual life Literature Finney, Nikky Race discrimination Segregation in education African American universities and colleges Talladega College Civil rights Sanchez, Sonia, 1934- Black Arts movement Giovanni, Nikki Claflin College (Orangeburg, S.C.)

Interview Rights

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Interview Usage

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.