The Canon

1924 - 1987

novelist, poet, essayist, + playwright

1944 -

novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist

first Black Woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, for her novel, The Color Purple.

1952 - 2021

distinguished professor, author, social activist, intersectional feminist, academic, poet, and social critic

best known for her work, ‘All About Love’.

1931 - 2019

novelist, fiction editor, + professor

Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993

1928 - 2014

poet, civil rights activist, + memoirist

1908 - 1960

novelist, short story writer, + poet

1944 -

political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, professor, + author

1901 - 1967

poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, + columnist

known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance

1947 - 2006

science-fiction writer

the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.

1936 - 1974

street/urban literature writer

1948 - 2018

playwright, Black feminist, + poet

best known for her Obie Award-winning play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf

1939 - 1995

author, documentary film-maker, social activist, + college professor

1934 -

poet, children’s book author, essayist, + professor

pioneered Black studies courses at San Francisco State University

1891 - 1960

author, anthropologist, filmmaker, researcher, + hoodoo practitioner

best known for her voice during the Harlem Renaissance

1934 - 1992

writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, poet, + civil rights activist

1914 - 1994

writer, literary critic, critical essayist, + scholar

attended Tuskegee University

1921 - 1992

writer + author of the 1976 book, Roots: The Saga of an American Family.

ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries that aired in 1977 in front of a record-breaking 130 million tv audience.

1930 - 1965

playwright + writer

she was the first Black woman to have a play performed on Broadway, A Raisin in the Sun.

1943 -

poet, writer, commentator, activist, + educator

attended Fisk University + is considered one of the most known Black poets of the Black Arts Movement.

1950 - 2016

novelist

best known for her novel, The Women of Brewster Place, which later became adapted in 1989 miniseries by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions.

1856 - 1915

educator, author, orator, + a U.S. presidential adviser

founder + first president of Tuskegee Institute (Tuskegee University)

1917 - 2000

poet, author, + teacher

the first Black person to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

1871 - 1938

writer, civil rights activist, educator, + leader of the NAACP

Clark Atlanta University graduate, and most notable for composing “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing”

1868 - 1963

sociologist, socialist, historian, + Pan-African civil rights acvitivst, essayist, + a founder of the NAACP

an Atlanta University (Clark Atlanta University) professor of sociology, history + economics.

1862 - 1931

investigative journalist, educator, civil rights leader, + a founder of the NAACP

1974 -

writer, professor, editor, + social commentator

1945 - 2005

playwright

referred to as “theater’s poet of Black america”.