| Imhotep |
ca. 27th cent. BC |
| Hardjedef |
ca. 26th cent. BC |
| Pyramid Texts |
ca. 24th-22nd cent. BC |
| Nefer-Seshem-Re |
ca. 24th cent. BC |
| Ptahhotep |
ca. 24th cent. BC |
| Instruction Addressed to King Merikare |
ca. 22nd-21st cent. BC |
| Dispute Between a Man and His Ba |
ca. 20th cent. BC |
| Tale of the Eloquent Peasant |
ca. 19th cent. BC |
| Book of the Dead |
ca. 17th-7th cent. BC |
| Instruction of Any |
ca. 16th cent. BC |
| Akhenaten |
d. ca. 1336 BC |
| Instruction of Amenemope |
ca. 13th-11th cent. BC |
| Physiologus (Ethiopian version) |
ca. 5th cent. |
| Kebra Negast |
completed by 1321 |
| Giyorgis of Segla |
d. 1425 |
| Zera Yacob (the Emperor) |
1399-1468 |
| Enbaqom |
ca. 1470-ca. 1561 |
| ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Maghīlī |
d. 1504 |
| Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī |
d. ca. 1505 |
| Book of the Wise Philosophers (Ethiopian) |
ca. early 16th cent. |
| Life and Maxims of Secundus (Ethiopian) |
ca. early 16th cent. |
| Juan Latino |
ca. 1516-ca. 1597 |
| Aḥmad Bābā |
1556-1627 |
| Walatta Petros |
1592-1642 |
| Zera Yacob (the philosopher) |
1599-1692 |
| Muḥammad al-Wālī al-Mālikī |
fl.1688 |
| Walda Heywat |
fl. ca. late 17th cent.-early 18th cent. |
| Anton Wilhelm Amo |
1703-1758 |
| James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw |
ca. 1710-1775 |
| Jupiter Hammon |
1711-ca. 1806 |
| Jacobus Capitein |
ca. 1717-1747 |
| Ignatius Sancho |
ca. 1729-1780 |
| Benjamin Banneker |
1731-1806 |
| Prince Hall |
ca. 1735-1807 |
| Toussaint Louverture |
ca. 1743-1803 |
| Olaudah Equiano |
1745-1797 |
| Absalom Jones |
1746-1818 |
| Shaykh ʿAbd Allāh |
d. 1829 |
| Lemuel Haynes |
1753-1833 |
| ʿUthmān Dan Fodio |
1754-1817 |
| Phillis Wheatley |
ca.1754-1784 |
| John Marrant |
1755-1791 |
| Quobna Ottobah Cugoano |
1757-ca.1791 |
| Jean-Jacques Dessalines |
ca. 1758-1806 |
| Paul Cuffe |
1759-1817 |
| Richard Allen |
1760-1831 |
| Thomas Clarkson |
1760-1846 |
| James Forten |
1766-1842 |
| Daniel Coker |
1780-1846 |
| Peter Williams Jr |
ca. 1780-1840 |
| Muhammad Bello |
1781-1837 |
| Baron de Vastey |
1781-1820 |
| Jarena Lee |
1783-1864 |
| Nana Asmaʾu |
1793-1837 |
| Samuel Cornish |
1795-1858 |
| David Walker |
1796-1830 |
| Sojourner Truth |
1797-1883 |
| Hosea Easton |
1798-1837 |
| John Russwurm |
1799-1851 |
| Maria Stewart |
1803-1879 |
| William Whipper |
1804-1876 |
| William Lloyd Garrison |
1805-1879 |
| Martin Delany |
1812-1885 |
| James McCune Smith |
1813-1865 |
| Henry Highland Garnet |
1815-1881 |
| Samuel Ringgold Ward |
1817-1866 |
| Frederick Douglass |
1818-1895 |
| Alexander Crummell |
1819-1898 |
| Mary Ann Shadd |
1823-1893 |
| Frances Ellen Watkins Harper |
1825-1911 |
| James Theodore Holly |
1829-1911 |
| Luiz Gama |
1830-1882 |
| Demesvar Delorme |
1831-1901 |
| Edward Blyden |
1832-1912 |
| Henry McNeal Turner |
1834-1915 |
| James Africanus Beale Horton |
1835-1883 |
| Machado de Assis |
1839-1908 |
| John Jacob Thomas |
1841-1889 |
| Richard Theodore Greener |
1844-1922 |
| Archibald Grimké |
1849-1930 |
| Joaquim Nabuco |
1849-1910 |
| Antenor Firmin |
1850-1911 |
| George Washington Woodbey |
1854-1937 |
| Fannie Barrier Williams |
1855-1944 |
| Louis-Joseph Janvier |
1855-1911 |
| John Bruce |
1856-1924 |
| Booker T. Washington |
1856-1915 |
| T. Thomas Fortune |
1856-1928 |
| Anna Julia Cooper |
1858-1964 |
| Thomas Nelson Baker |
1860-1940 |
| Ida B. Wells |
1862-1931 |
| Raul Pompeia |
1863-1895 |
| Kelly Miller |
1863-1939 |
| Mary Church Terrell |
1863-1954 |
| Joseph Ephraim Casely-Hayford |
1866-1930 |
| Henry Sylvester Williams |
1867-1911 |
| W.E.B. Du Bois |
1868-1963 |
| Benito Sylvain |
1868-1915 |
| Paul Lawrence Dunbar |
1872-1906 |
| William H. Ferris |
1874-1941 |
| Carter G. Woodson |
1875-1950 |
| Hubert Harrison |
1883-1927 |
| Alain Locke |
1885-1954 |
| Marcus Garvey |
1887-1940 |
| A. Philip Randolph |
1889-1979 |
| Claude McKay |
1889-1948 |
| Zora Neale Hurston |
1891-1960 |
| Frederick Alexander Durham |
fl. 1892 |
| E. Franklin Frazier |
1894-1962 |
| George Schuyler |
1895-1977 |
| Amy Ashwood Garvey |
1895?-1969 |
| Amy Jacques Garvey |
1895-1973 |
| Melville Herskovits |
1895-1963 |
| Paul Robeson |
1898-1976 |
| C.L.R. James |
1901-1989 |
| Oliver Cromwell Cox |
1901-1974 |
| Langston Hughes |
1902-1967 |
| Countee Cullen |
1903-1946 |
| Ralph Bunche |
1904-1971 |
| Nnamdi Azikiwe |
1904-1996 |
| Placide Tempels |
1906-1977 |
| Léopold Sédar Senghor |
1906-2001 |
| Richard Wright |
1908-1960 |
| Kwame Nkrumah |
1909-1972 |
| Obafemi Awolowo |
1909-1987 |
| Eric Williams |
1911-1981 |
| Aimé Césaire |
1913-2008 |
| Ralph Ellison |
1914-1994 |
| Abdias do Nascimento |
1914-2011 |
| Claudia Jones |
1915-1964 |
| Suzanne Cesaire |
1915-1966 |
| Harold Cruse |
1916-2005 |
| Nelson Mandela |
1918-2013 |
| Julius Nyerere |
1922-1999 |
| Cheikh Anta Diop |
1923-1986 |
| James Baldwin |
1924-1987 |
| Amílcar Cabral |
1924-1973 |
| Malcolm X |
1925-1965 |
| Frantz Fanon |
1925-1961 |
| Sylvia Wynter |
born 1928 |
| Édouard Glissant |
1928-2011 |
| Martin Luther King Jr |
1929-1968 |
| Derrick Bell |
1930-2011 |
| Toni Morrison |
1931-2019 |
| Okot p’Bitek |
1931-1982 |
| Kwasi Wiredu |
born 1931 |
| John Mbiti |
born 1931 |
| Stuart Hall |
1932-2014 |
| Audre Lorde |
1934-1992 |
| Wole Soyinka |
born 1934 |
| Amiri Baraka |
1934-2014 |
| Larry Neal |
1937-1981 |
| Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o |
born 1938 |
| Ishmael Reed |
born 1938 |
| Fela Kuti |
1938-1997 |
| Kwame Gyekye |
1939-2019 |
| Kwame Ture |
1941-1998 |
| Maulana Karenga |
born 1941 |
| George Clinton |
born 1941 |
| V.Y. Mudimbe |
born 1941 |
| Paulin Hountondji |
born 1942 |
| Huey P. Newton |
1942-1989 |
| Walter Rodney |
1942-1980 |
| Hortense Spillers |
born 1942 |
| Molefi Keti Asante |
born 1942 |
| Angela Y. Davis |
born 1944 |
| Henry Odera Oruka |
1944-1995 |
| Lucius Outlaw Jr. |
born 1944 |
| Bob Marley |
1945-1981 |
| Steve Biko |
1946-1977 |
| Patricia Hill Collins |
born 1948 |
| Ntozake Shange |
1948-2018 |
| Awa Thiam |
born 1950 |
| Charles Mills |
born 1951 |
| Patricia J. Williams |
born 1951 |
| bell hooks |
born 1952 |
| Cornel West |
born 1953 |
| Kwame Anthony Appiah |
born 1954 |
| Paul Gilroy |
born 1956 |
| Tsenay Serequeberhan |
born 1957 |
| Achille Mbembe |
born 1957 |
| Kimberle Crenshaw |
born 1959 |
| Lewis Gordon |
born 1962 |
