James Weldon Johnson was an American writer and civil rights activist. He was married to civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson. Johnson was a leader of the National Associa...

Paul Laurence Dunbar was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the Ame...

William Stanley Beaumont Braithwaite was an African-American writer, poet, literary critic, anthologist, and publisher. His work as a critic and anthologist was widely praised and important in the dev...

Benjamin Griffith Brawley was an American author and educator. Several of his books were considered standard college texts, including The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States (1918) and Ne...

Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay was a Jamaican-American writer and poet. He was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Jamaica, McKay first traveled to the United States to attend college,...

Alice Dunbar Nelson was an American writer, poet, journalist, and political activist, born on July 19, 1875, in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance and known f...

R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) was a Canadian-American composer, organist, pianist, choral director, and music professor. He is known for his use of African-American folk songs and spirituals as the ba...