Nikki Giovanni wrote “Mothers” in 1972. At the time, she was already a vocal and prolific member of the Black Arts Movement—a cultural movement inspired and promoted in the mid-1960s through the 1970s by artists including Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, Etheridge Knight, and others. The movement aimed to forefront African American cultural identity and uplift and promote Afrocentric community and art including music, literature, drama, and visual art. The movement grew concurrent with, on the heels of, and prior to the assassinations of Malcom X, activist Jimmy Lee Jackson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy.

By 1972, Nikki Giovanni had published collections including Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), Black Judgement (1968), and Re: Creation (1970). Giovanni’s poem “Nikki-Rosa,” published in Black Judgment, was widely anthologized, and contributed to Giovanni’s status as a major poet in what was referred to as the Black Renaissance. Giovanni appeared in televised and published conversation with writers such as James Baldwin and Margaret Walker, and was a sought-after speaker at events and universities. Giovanni’s early work embraces what some critics called a “militant” tone, but which Giovanni personally refers to as good poetry. Early work explores issues of race and gender both within the Black community and under pressures from a white-dominated culture.