Black Judgement was published by Broadside Press in 1968, appearing within months of Black Feeling Black Talk and establishing Giovanni as one of the most prolific and visible poets of the Black Arts Movement. The collection contains her most famous poem, “Nikki-Rosa,” as well as elegies, manifestos, and personal lyrics that demonstrate her ability to move between public and private registers without losing authenticity in either.
“Nikki-Rosa” is the collection’s masterpiece: a deceptively simple poem about Giovanni’s childhood that insists on the distinction between how Black experience appears from outside (poverty, hardship, deprivation) and how it feels from inside (warmth, community, joy, love). The poem’s famous conclusion — “and I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me / because they never understand Black love is Black wealth” — articulates a politics of representation that became central to the Movement’s aesthetic.
Other poems in the collection address the political moment directly: “The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr.” and “The Great Pax Whitie” respond to the assassinations of 1968 with rage and grief; “Beautiful Black Men” celebrates Black masculinity with an eroticism that was unusual in political poetry; and “For Saundra” confronts the question of whether writing poems is adequate political action (“maybe i shouldn’t write / at all / but clean my gun”).
Giovanni’s voice across the collection is distinctive for its refusal of pretension: she writes as she speaks, in a rhythm derived from Black vernacular rather than from European poetic tradition.
Collecting Black Judgement
First edition (Broadside Press, Detroit, 1968): Paper wrappers.
Market values:
- First printing (Broadside Press): $40–$100
- Combined with Black Feeling Black Talk (Morrow, 1970): $20–$50
- Signed copies: $60–$150