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