Black Literary Figures

Updated September 13, 2021 | Infoplease Staff

Notable African-American Literary Figures

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The following list includes African-American writers, poets, journalists, and playwrights, who contributed to the advancement of literature in the United States, including Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and more.

• Maya Angelou, poet, writer, composer, actress
• James Baldwin, American author
• Imamu Amira Baraka, American poet, playwright, and political activist
• Arna Bontemps, novelist
• Gwendolyn Brooks, American poet
• Octavia Butler, science fiction writer
• Ed Bullins, playwright
• Charles W. Chesnutt, American author and lawyer
• Countee Cullen, American poet
• Paul Laurence Dunbar, American poet and novelist
• Ralph Ellison, American author
• Charles Fuller, playwright
• Nikki Giovanni, poet
• Alex Haley, author
• Jupiter Hammon, American poet
• Lorraine Hansberry, American playwright
• Bell Hooks, writer
• Langston Hughes, American poet
• Zora Neale Hurston, American writer
• James Weldon Johnson, American author
• Jamaica Kincaid, writer
• Nella Larsen, American writer
• Toni Morrison, novelist
• Ann Lane Petry, novelist
• Leonard Pitts, Jr., journalist, writer
• Carl Thomas Rowan, journalist
• John Russwurm, U.S. journalist and Liberian statesman
• Ignatius Sancho, writer
• Ntozke Shange, writer
• Wallace Thurman, writer
• Jean Toomer, writer
• Gustavus Vassa, writer
• Alice Walker, author
• Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, activist
• Dorothy West, writer
• Phillis Wheatley, American poet
• John Edgar Wideman, writer
• August Wilson, playwright, poet
• Richard Wright, American author