| 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 |
| Sun Ra | 1914-1993 |
| 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 |
| Maya Angelou | 1928-2014 |
| 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 |
| Toni Cade Bambara | 1939-1995 |
| Kwame Gyekye | 1939-2019 |
| Kwame Ture | 1941-1998 |
| Maulana Karenga | born 1941 |
| George Clinton | born 1941 |
| V.Y. Mudimbe | born 1941 |
| Stokely Carmichael | 1941-1998 |
| Paulin Hountondji | born 1942 |
| Huey P. Newton | 1942-1989 |
| Walter Rodney | 1942-1980 |
| Hortense Spillers | born 1942 |
| Molefi Keti Asante | born 1942 |
| H. Rap Brown (Jamal al-Amin) | born 1943 |
| 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 |
