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, novelistGwendolyn 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
