Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer lived her entire life in Virginia, where she tended her garden, worked as a librarian and teacher, hosted luminaries of...
Alice Dunbar Nelson, in full Alice Ruth Dunbar Nelson, née Moore, (born July 19, 1875, New Orleans, La., U.S.—died Sept. 18, 1935, Philadelphia, Pa.), novelist,...
Zadie Smith, originally Sadie Smith, (born October 27, 1975, in London, England), is the British author known for her treatment of race, religion, and cultural...
Charles W. Chesnutt, in full Charles Waddell Chesnutt, (born June 20, 1858, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.—died Nov. 15, 1932, Cleveland), first important black American novelist. Chesnutt...
William Still (1821–1902) was an African-American abolitionist, writer, and Underground Railroad conductor. He was born in Burlington County, New Jersey, to parents who were formerly...
Anna Julia Cooper (1858 – 1964) was a visionary black feminist leader, educator, intellectual, and activist. She rose to prominence as one of the country’s...
Négritude was both a literary and ideological movement led by French-speaking black writers and intellectuals from France’s colonies in Africa and the Caribbean in the...
Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) was a Martinican poet, playwright, politician, and intellectual whose work profoundly shaped postcolonial literature and thought. As a co-founder of the Négritude...