20th-century African-American academics

Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.

African American novelist, essayist, and academic (1931–2019)

American diplomat and political scientist (born 1954)

American political activist, scholar, and author (born 1944)

American astrophysicist and science communicator

American writer (1924–1987)

American sociologist and activist (1868–1963)

American doctor and NASA astronaut

African American botanist and inventor (1864-1943)

African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor (1856-1915)

American author and activist (1952–2021)

American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

American mathematician and aerospace engineer

American recording artist; jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter and vocalist (1932–2013)

American mathematician and rocket scientist

African-American scholar

American law professor; witness in Clarence Thomas controversy

African-American author, educator, speaker and scholar (1858–1964)

American philosopher and writer (1885–1954)

American lawyer, social reformer and academic

African-American mathematician (1924–2023)

American biochemist (1921–2003)

American political scientist and university administrator

American librarian and 14th Librarian of Congress (born 1952)

American opera singer, educator and writer

American mathematician, educator (1914–1979)

American attorney, politician (1954–2025)

Jamaican-American economist (born 1938)

American poet, essayist, playwright, and the president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation since 2018. (born 1962)

African-American historian and philosopher; theorist of Afrocentricity

American educator and businessman

US mathematician (1932-1995)

American pop/rhythm and blues singer, songwriter and producer

American theoretical physicist

American psychologist

American singer, composer, and activist (1942–2024)

American opera singer

American lawyer, rabbi, educator, and politician

American academic

American classicist and political scientist

American historian

American mathematician

American chemist and mathematician

American academic and writer

American physician

American fiction writer, memoirist, essayist

American chemist

American chemist

American visual artist (born 1955)

American operatic soprano (1919-2012)

American atmospheric scientist (1936–2024)

American mathematician

American legal academic and writer

American historian and writer (1915–1998)

American conductor (1895–1992)

American activist (1928–2024)

American historian, writer and academic

American opera singer

American computer scientist

American activist (1855-1944)