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For, like poets Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks and another singular supernova, Prince, the latter two of whom shared her birthday, Nikki has always communed with like-minded iconoclasts and what she called “space freaks,” those who understand that our songs of rage, rapture, irreverence and yearning are our greatest, Blackest weapons.

She was best known for her outspoken advocacy and her charismatic delivery and was a friend of fellow wordsmiths Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison.

Another resident, 96-year-old Gwendolyn Higgs, was similarly exasperated.

Gwendolyn Reese, president of the African American Heritage Association, once lived in the Gas Plant neighborhood.

The prescription was for a patient named “Gwendolyn Cox” — not “Gwendlyn” — with a different birthday.