21st-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 author and activist (1952–2021)

American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

American diplomat and policy advisor (born 1964)

American legal academic (born 1959)

American jazz bassist and singer (born 1984)

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

American philosopher, political activist and writer (born 1953)

American mathematician and rocket scientist

American aerospace engineer and NASA astronaut born 1970

British-American philosopher and writer

African-American scholar

American actor and director

American law professor; witness in Clarence Thomas controversy

American poet and author

American literary critic, professor and historian (born 1950)

American composer and jazz pianist (1957-2017)

American lawyer, social reformer and academic

American actress, playwright and professor

American biochemist (1921–2003)

African-American mathematician (1924–2023)

American political scientist and university administrator

American musician, composer and philosopher (born 1945)

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

American opera singer, educator and writer

American music executive, businessman, record producer, and manager

Nigerian physician

Somali-American writer (1971-)

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 psychologist

American pop/rhythm and blues singer, songwriter and producer

American educator and businessman

American artist (b. 1948)

American theoretical physicist

American lawyer, rabbi, educator, and politician

American economist (1964-)

American academic

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

American opera singer

American academic and writer

American classicist and political scientist

American mathematician

Ghanaian economist

American historian

American politician (born 1975); 10th United States Secretary of Education

mechanical engineer (1929-2019)

American economist

American operatic soprano (1919-2012)

American fiction writer, memoirist, essayist

American historian

American legal academic and writer

American philosopher

American activist (1928–2024)

American historian, writer and academic

American mathematician