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 |