15 Most Famous Black Authors of all Times

15 Most Famous Black Authors of all Times

These revered black authors chose to use their words to empower, inspire, and enlighten. The most important thing is to use our voices and platforms to make a difference in society. Their work lives on and continues to impact our lives through thought-provoking art that, despite being published decades ago, is still relevant today.

1. James Baldwin

James Baldwin taken in Hyde Park, London Photo by Allan warren Wikimedia Commons

James Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York on August 2, 1924.
“Go Tell It on the Mountain,” his first novel, was published in 1953, making him the first African American author to establish a literary career with a major publisher. Throughout his life, he published several novels and essays. He also wrote the play “Blues for Mister Charlie,” which dealt with prejudice and racism. In 1978, he received an honorary doctorate from Brown University at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Going to Meet the Man (1965), Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (1968), and The Fire Next Time (1969) are among his most well-known works (1963). He died in 1987, at the age of 63, of stomach cancer.

2. Maya Angelou

From Baltimore M.D. Hopkins University Photo by Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com Wikimedia Commons

Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928.
She was a poet before attempting her hand at writing prose.  Maya worked for the Federal Writers Project after graduating from Vassar College. She was assigned to visit writers incarcerated at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. Her early work was later collected in a book titled I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). Angelou has received praise for her unique style and delivery. She emphasizes the use of voice and rhythm to draw the reader in.  Angelou also spoke candidly about her personal life, including details about her relationships, sexual encounters, and rape.
Among her most well-known works are: Gather in My Name (1965), I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), and The Heart of a Woman: Maya Angelou’s Life (1992). She passed away in 2014, at the age of 86.

3. Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison, 1998. Photo by John Mathew Smith Wikimedia Commons

Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio.
Toni went to Howard University in Washington, D.C. to study creative writing. She published her first short story in 1956 and her first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” in 1970, becoming one of the most famous black writers. This was the first Pulitzer Prize for Fiction won by an African American woman. Morrison’s literary style is distinguished by a strong sense of place and time and a narrative that revolves around individualism vs. groupthink. She has over 20 books to her credit, including The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved.
Her most well-known works include Beloved (1987), Song of the Sea, and The Bluest Eye (1970). She died in Montefiore Hospital, New York, USA, on 5 August 2019.

4. W.E.B Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois Photo by Addison N. Scurlock Wikimedia Commons

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was a sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist from the United States. He was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on February 23, 1868.
During the late 1800s, Du Bois attended Fisk University and Harvard University. During the 1890s, he worked as a pathologist at several hospitals before publishing his memoir “The Souls of Black Folk” in 1903, which advocated for racial equality and civil rights for African Americans. He founded the NAACP in 1909 and was the editor of “The Crisis” from 1909 to 1934. During his lifetime, he also wrote several critical essays.
The Souls of Black Folk (1903), The History of the Negro People in America (1903), and The Quest for the Silver Fleece (1903) are among his most famous works (1911). He died on 27th August 1963 in Accra, Ghana.

5. Booker T. Washington

Photograph of Booker T. Washington Photo by Harris & Ewing Wikimedia Commons

Booker Taliaferro Washington was born in Hale’s Ford, Westlake Corner, Virginia on April 5, 1856.
Booker T. Washington was the first African American to attend and graduate from Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute. He founded a school for black children and later became the president of Tuskegee University, one of America’s leading black colleges. Washington was also involved in philanthropic investigations, designed vocational training and agricultural programs for blacks, and wrote his autobiography “Up from Slavery” during his lifetime.
Up From Slavery (1901), The Booker T. Washington Papers (1903), and Booker T. Washington and the Negroes’ Present Problems (1904) are among his most famous works (1910). He died on November 14, 1915, in Tuskegee, Alabama, USA.

6. Richard Wright

Portrait of Richard Wright Photo by Van Vechten Collection Wikimedia Commons

Richard Nathaniel Wright, born September 4, 1908, in Roxie, Mississippi, is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and nonfiction writer. Much of his work concerns racial themes, particularly the plight of African Americans who faced discrimination and violence from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries.
Wright attended Hampton Institute and Fisk University before relocating to Chicago to pursue a career as an actor. He later attended Harvard University before joining the Federal Theatre Project during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. Many of his most famous works, including “Native Son” (1940), “The Outsider” (1956), and “Black Boy,” were written while he was in this position (1945). His work explores themes of injustice and discrimination in contemporary American society. Black Boy (1945), Native Son (1940), and The Color Purple(1982) are among his most acclaimed works. He died on 28 November 1960 in Paris, France.

7. Zora Neale Hurston

Portrait of Zora Neale Hurston Photo by Van Vechten Collection Wikimedia Commons

Zora Neale Hurston was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker who was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama. She depicted racial tensions in the early 1900s American South and published hoodoo research.
Hurston had a positive impact on African Americans who were experiencing racism at the time. She was also an example of how to overcome adversity, despite having endured a lifetime of abuse and poverty. Despite being black, Hurston is well-known for writing over 20 works of fiction and nonfiction. “Their Eyes Were Watching God” (1937) and “Mosses from an Old Manse” (1938) are two of her best-known novels (1894). Hurston was the recipient of several honors, including the prestigious National Book Award in 1953.

Hurston is now regarded as a pioneer among black literature authors. She studied to be a teacher and has worked as a maid, a librarian, and an anthropologist. She was an outspoken supporter of radical feminism and the Black Arts Movement.
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Tell My Horse (1938), and Dust Tracks on a Road (1942) are among his most well-known works. She died on January 28, 1960, at the SLC Agape Seniors Rec Center in Fort Pierce, Florida, USA.

8. Langston Hughes

w:en:Langston Hughes photographed by w:en:Carl Van Vechten, 1936. Photo by Carl Van Vechten Wikimedia Commons

James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist who was born on February 1, 1901, in Joplin, Missouri. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance and one of the early innovators of the literary art form known as jazz poetry.
Hughes was born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. He went to the University of Missouri but dropped out to work as a musician in Cleveland. During the Great Migration of the 1920s and 1930s, he visited New York City and Chicago. He wrote several short stories before releasing his first poetry collection, “The Weary Blues” (1926). Soon after, his second book, “Not Without Laughter,” was released. 

Hughes used his poetry and fiction to express his displeasure with racism, discrimination, and injustice in America.
Dream Keeper (1941), I Continue to Dream (1941), and Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951) are among his most well-known works. He died on May 22, 1967, at the Stuyvesant Polyclinic.

9. Ralph Ellison

First-edition dust jacket cover of Invisible Man (1952) by the American author Ralph Ellison. Photo by E. McKnight Kauffer. Wikimedia Commons

Ralph Waldo Ellison was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 1, 1914.
Ralph Ellison went to Tuskegee Institute and then Harvard Law School. After graduating from law school, he opened his practice as an attorney. A determined writer at all times, Ellison wrote several essays and short stories during his lifetime. He also had a speech impediment, so he could not teach college. Ellison published his first book, “Invisible Man” in 1952. Ellison’s seminal novel “The Invisible Man” was published several years later. This was the first book of fiction to focus on an African American protagonist. He won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1953 and received a Doctor of Letters from Harvard University in 1970.

His most well-known works include Invisible Man (1952), The Invisible Man Returns (1955), and The New American Hymnal (1971).

10. Alice Walker

Alice Walker Photo by Virginia DeBolt Wikimedia Commons

Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist who was born on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. She was the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1982, for her novel The Color Purple.
Alice Walker received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. She started out by publishing short stories in local and national newspapers. “The Third Life of Grange Copeland,” her first book, was published in 1970.
She wrote several books, including The Color Purple and The Secret of Joy. Walker is well-known for her support of women’s rights and racial equality, and she has worked tirelessly to advance these causes.

Famous Works are; The Color Purple (1982), Everyday Use (1973), In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (1983)

11. Octavia Butler

Octavia Estelle Butler signing a copy of Fledgling Photo by Nikolas Coukouma Wikimedia Commons

Octavia Estelle Butler was born on 22 June 1947, in Pasadena, California, United States. She is an American science fiction author who has won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards. Butler was the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship in 1995.
Octavia Butler’s first science fiction novel, “Kindred,” was published in 1979. “Mind of My Mind,” a sequel to the novel published later that year, was written by her. Her novels frequently dealt with issues of discrimination, social injustice, and other forms of inequality. Her novel “Parable of the Sower,” which examined classism and race relations in America, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1995. Butler’s novel “Bloodchild and Other Stories,” a hybrid of science fiction and horror, won the Crawford Award in 1998. She died on February 24, 2006, in Lake Forest Park, Washington, USA.

Kindred (1979), Imago (1987), and The Parable of the Sower(1994) are among her most well-known works.

12. Lorraine Hansberry

Theatrical release poster for the 1961 film A Raisin in the Sun (1961 film) Photo by Copyright © 1961 Columbia Pictures Corporation Wikimedia Commons

Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was a playwright and writer. She was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. She was the first African-American female author to have a Broadway play produced.
“A Raisin in the Sun” and “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black” are two of her plays. She graduated from the University of Houston with a B.F.A. in drama and from Yale University with an M.F.A. in drama. Schooling was no longer available to her due to death threats made by school officials after she developed an idea for a play about integration in the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. She wrote and published throughout her life, but her death in 1977 cemented her reputation as a great African American author.

A Raisin in the Sun (1959), To Be Young, Gifted, and Black (1961), and The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window (1965) are among her most well-known works.

13. August Wilson

August Wilson was born on April 27, 1945, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s Hill District. He majored in theater at the University of Massachusetts and later worked as a performer and director in regional theaters throughout the 1970s and 1980s. His first play, “Jitney,” was published in 1982, and he later published “Fences,” which earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 1987, his play “The Piano Lesson” won him his second Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He continued to write and publish until he died in 2005. His work centered on twentieth-century African American life, culture, and history.
Famous works include Fences (1987), Two Trains Running (1992), and Jitney (1994).

14. Alex Haley

Alex Haley speaker at University of Texas at Arlington’s Texas Hall Photo by University of Texas at Arlington Photograph Collection Wikimedia Commons

Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was born on August 11, 1921, in Ithaca, New York, USA.
Alex Haley was a novelist and journalist who wrote “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” in 1965. The book was made into a mini-series, which won four Emmy Awards and other honors, helping him establish himself as an important African American writer. He also authored the memoir “Roots: The Saga of an American Family” in 1976, which focused on the Haley family. The word “Dawn” refers to the time when a person was awakened from a coma by the sight of the word “Dawn” on the cover of a book. His work helped him win numerous literary awards and establish himself as one of the most well-known African American authors.  He died on February 10, 1992, in Seattle, Washington, USA.

Famous works include Malcolm X’s Autobiography (1965), Roots (1976), and Queen (1980).

15. Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka addressing the Malcom X Festival in San Antonio Park, Oakland, California Photo by David Sasaki Wikipedia Commons

Amiri Baraka, also known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was born on October 7, 1934, in Newark, New Jersey, USA. He was an American poet, dramatist, fiction writer, essayist, and music critic who wrote numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the University of Buffalo and Stony Brook University.
After being expelled from several high schools, Amiri enrolled at the New York Fine and Applied Arts School. Later, at the Harlem Suitcase Theater, he collaborated with Langston Hughes, which resulted in the publication of “The Wandering Foot” (1964). “Preface to a Twenty-Volume Suicide Note,” Baraka’s first collection of poems, was published (in 1965). He died on 9th January 2014, at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, Newark, New Jersey, United States.

Among his most well-known works are, The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones (1961), Dutchman (1964), and The System of Dante’s Hell (1965).