by Jeroslyn JoVonn
February 19, 2025
Kwame Alexander will interview The HistoryMakers Founder Julieanna Richardson in honor of the legacy of Nikki Giovanni.
The Art Institute of Chicago will close Black History Month by hosting an impactful conversation with Julieanna Richardson, honoring the legacy of the late Nikki Giovanni.
Giovanni, the great American poet who died at age 81 on Dec. 9, 2024, was a Black arts, culture, and liberation champion. The famed writer and educator was a 2008 recipient of BLACK ENTERPRISE’s Women of Power Legacy Award.
On Thursday, Feb. 27, author, speaker, educator, and Emmy Award-winning producer Kwame Alexander will interview the founder and executive director of The HistoryMakers, Julieanna Richardson, for “An Evening With Julieanna Richardson,” the Institute announced. Through a series of open-ended questions, Richardson will share her lifelong commitment to preserving the legacy of African American stories through The HistoryMakers.
In collaboration with The HistoryMakers and The Poetry Foundation, the event marks the first time Richardson—who has conducted hundreds of oral history interviews for The HistoryMakers archives—will share her own life story in a live, on-stage interview. The event will be taped for public broadcast and will take place inside the Art Institute of Chicago’s Arthur Rubloff Auditorium from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Richardson founded The HistoryMakers in 2000 after conducting her first interview with Black radio executive Barry Mayo. As she went on to interview figures like Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, and Julian Bond, a pivotal encounter with William Thompson, a World War II Tuskegee Airman, shifted her perspective—highlighting that The HistoryMakers was about more than just celebrities.
Inspired by interviews with Thompson and William Sylvester White, both now deceased, Richardson officially launched The HistoryMakers as a nonprofit educational institution based in Chicago. For 25 years, it has been dedicated to preserving, expanding, and providing access to an internationally recognized archive of thousands of African American video oral histories.
“It was one of those moments when I knew I was on the right path,” Richardson told Chicago Magazine in 2007. “It wasn’t about names, but about finding history in places where people didn’t know history existed.”
Alexander brings his passion for words and literature to the conversation as the interviewer. A poet, Emmy Award-winning producer, and New York Times bestselling author, he has penned 42 books, including Why Fathers Cry at Night, Becoming Muhammad Ali (co-authored with James Patterson), and The Crossover, his Newbery Medal-winning novel.
Alexander was recently appointed the Michael I. Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts for Chautauqua Literary Arts. The New York City native also serves as executive producer of The Crossover TV series on Disney+ and an upcoming animated special on PBS inspired by his children’s book, Acoustic Rooster.
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