Giovanni's poetry reaches more readership through her active engagement with live audiences. She gave her first public reading at the New York City jazz spot, Birdland. Her public expression of “oppression, anger, and solidarity” as well as her political activism allow her to reach more than just the poetic circles. After the birth of her son in 1969, Giovanni recorded several of her poems with a musical backdrop of jazz and gospel. She began to travel all around the world and speak and read to a wider audience. Even though Giovanni's earlier works were known to carry a militant, revolutionary tone, Giovanni communicated "a global sense of solidarity amongst oppressed peoples in the world" in her travels. It is in this sense of human unity in which Giovanni aligns herself with the beliefs of Martin Luther King, Jr. Like King, Giovanni believes a unified, collective government must be made up of the everyday, ordinary citizen, regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender. In the 1970s and '80s her popularity as a speaker increased even more. In 1972 Giovanni interviewed Muhammad Ali on "Soul!"