39 African American librarians

Regina M. Anderson was an American playwright and librarian. She was of Native American, Jewish, East Indian, Swedish, and other European ancestry ; one of her grandparents was of African descent, born in Madagascar. Despite her own identification of her race as "American", she was perceived to be African-American by others. Influenced by Ida B. Wells and the lack of black history teachings in school, Regina became a key member of the Harlem Renaissance.

Hannah Diggs Atkins was a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1968 to 1980, and the first African-American woman elected to it. She was later appointed to the simultaneous positions of Secretary of State of Oklahoma and Secretary of Social Services, establishing her as the highest ranked female in Oklahoma state government until she retired in 1991.

The Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) is an affiliate of the American Library Association (ALA) that focuses on the needs of African American library professionals by promoting careers in librarianship, funding literacy initiatives, and providing scholarships.

Arna Wendell Bontemps was an American poet, novelist and librarian, and a noted member of the Harlem Renaissance.

Marjorie Adele Blackistone Bradfield was an American librarian who worked at the Detroit Public Library and Detroit Public Schools for many years. Bradfield was the first African-American librarian hired at the Detroit Public Library.

Wanda Kay Brown is an American librarian, and the President of the American Library Association for the 2019–2020 term. She is the director of the C. G. O’Kelly Library at Winston-Salem State University and a leader in state and national library associations.

Alice Dugged Cary, also known as Alice Dugged Carey, was an American educator and librarian.

Mayme Agnew Clayton was a librarian, and the founder, president, and leader of the Western States Black Research and Education Center (WSBREC), the largest privately held collection of African-American historical materials in the world. The collection represents the core holdings of the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum (MCLM) located in Culver City, California. The museum is the largest and most academically substantial independently held collection of objects, documents, and memorabilia on African American history and culture.

Alma Dawson is an American scholar of librarianship. She retired as Russell B. Long Professor at the School of Library & Information Science, Louisiana State University in 2014 and was awarded Emeritus status in 2015. In 2019 Dr. Dawson was honored with the Essae Martha Culver Distinguished Service Award from the Louisiana Library Association which honors a librarian whose professional service and achievements, whose leadership in Louisiana association work, and whose lifetime accomplishments in a field of librarianship within the state merit recognition of particular value to Louisiana librarianship.

Sadie Peterson Delaney was the chief librarian of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama, for 34 years. She is well known as a pioneer for her work with bibliotherapy.

Willye F. Clayton Dennis was an American librarian, civil rights activist and Florida state legislator. She was the first African-American Chief of Children's Services for the Jacksonville Public Library System. She was elected president of the Jacksonville branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, president of the Jacksonville Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta and elected to the 15th District of the Florida House of Representatives for two terms.

Meredith Evans is an archivist, historian and scholar and the director of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum in Atlanta. Her work focuses on the African-American experience in the United States, including the documentation of archival records from African-American churches in the Atlanta area, and the preservation of social media from recent civil rights protests such as those of the Ferguson unrest in Ferguson, Missouri after the shooting of Michael Brown.

George W. Forbes (1864-1927) was an American journalist who advocated for African-American civil rights in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for co-founding the Boston Guardian, an African-American newspaper in which he and William Monroe Trotter published editorials excoriating Booker T. Washington for his accommodationist approach to race relations. He also founded and edited the Boston Courant, one of Boston's earliest black newspapers, and edited the A. M. E. Church Review, a national publication.

Hardy Rogers Franklin was an American librarian and served as President of the American Library Association from 1993 to 1994.

Belle da Costa Greene was the librarian to J. P. Morgan. After Morgan's death in 1913, Greene continued as librarian under his son, Jack Morgan. In 1924 the private collection was incorporated by the State of New York as a library for public uses, and the Board of Trustees appointed Greene first director of the Pierpont Morgan Library.

Richard Theodore Greener was the first African American descendant graduate of Harvard College and went on to become the dean of the Howard University School of Law.

Vivian G. Harsh was an American librarian. On February 26, 1924, she became the Chicago Public Library system's first black librarian.

Carla Diane Hayden is an American librarian and the 14th Librarian of Congress. Hayden is the first woman and the first African American to hold the post. She is the first professional librarian appointed to the post in over 60 years.

Anita Florence Hemmings was the first African-American woman to graduate from Vassar College. After graduation she became a librarian at the Boston Public Library.

Judith Ann Carter Horton was an educator, librarian, and community leader who founded the first public library for African Americans in Oklahoma.

Alma Smith Jacobs was the first African American to serve as Montana State Librarian. She served as Head Librarian at the Great Falls Public Library from 1954–1973, and in 1973 was named Montana State Librarian, serving until 1981.

Julius C. Jefferson Jr. is an American librarian and is a section head of the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress. He was elected president of the American Library Association in April 2019.

Clara Stanton Jones was the first African-American president of the American Library Association, serving as its acting president from April 11 to July 22 in 1976 and then its president from July 22, 1976 to 1977. Also, in 1970 she became the first African American and the first woman to serve as director of a major library system in America, as director of the Detroit Public Library.

Virginia Lacy Jones was an American librarian who throughout her 50-year career in the field pushed for the integration of public and academic libraries. She was one of the first African Americans to earn a PhD in Library Science and became dean of Atlanta University's School of Library Sciences.

Nellallitea "Nella" Larsen, born Nellie Walker, was an American novelist of the Harlem Renaissance. Working as a nurse and a librarian, she published two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), and a few short stories. Though her literary output was scant, she earned recognition by her contemporaries.

Miriam Matthews was an American librarian, advocate for intellectual freedom, historian, and art collector. In 1927, Matthews became the first credentialed African American librarian to be hired by the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL).

Claudia McNeil was an American actress known for premiering the role of matriarch Lena Younger in both the stage and screen productions of A Raisin in the Sun.

A. Grace Lee Mims was an African-American singer, radio personality and leading member of the arts community in Cleveland, Ohio best known for her 43 years as a radio host and producer on the classical radio station WCLV.

Samuel F. Morrison is an American librarian. Morrison was director of the Broward County Library system for thirteen years and the catalyst behind the system's establishment of the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center. He also served as the chief librarian of the Chicago Public Library from 1987 to 1989, overseeing the design and construction of the Harold Washington Library.

Daniel Alexander Payne Murray (1852-1925) was an American bibliographer, author, politician, and historian. He also worked as an assistant librarian at the Library of Congress.

Major Robert Odell Owens was an American politician and librarian who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1983 to 2007, representing the New York's 11th and then 12th Congressional district. He was first elected to replace retiring Representative Shirley Chisholm. Owens shepherded the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 through the House. He retired at the end of his term in January 2007 and was succeeded by Yvette Clarke.

Dorothy Louise Porter Wesley was an African-American librarian, bibliographer and curator, who built the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University into a world-class research collection. She published numerous bibliographies on African-American history.

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, was a historian, writer, and activist. Schomburg was a Puerto Rican of African and German descent who moved to the United States and researched and raised awareness of the great contributions that Afro-Latin Americans and Afro-Americans have made to society. He was an important intellectual figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Over the years, he collected literature, art, slave narratives, and other materials of African history, which were purchased to become the basis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, named in his honor, at the New York Public Library (NYPL) branch in Harlem.

Anne Bethel Spencer was an American poet, teacher, civil rights activist, librarian, and gardener. While a librarian at the all-black Dunbar High School, a position she held for 20 years, she supplemented the original three books by bringing others from her own collection at home. Though she lived outside New York City, the recognized center of the Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro Movement, she was an important member of this group of intellectuals. She met Edward Spencer while attending Virginia Seminary in Lynchburg, Virginia. Following their marriage in 1901, the couple moved into a house he built at 1313 Pierce Street, where they raised a family and lived for the remainder of their lives.

Samuel W. Starks was an African American community leader who achieved national prominence through his leadership in the fraternal order the Knights of Pythias. Starks was the first African American to serve as a state librarian when he was appointed as the West Virginia state librarian in 1901.

Robert Wedgeworth is an American librarian who was the founding President of ProLiteracy Worldwide, an adult literacy organization. He is also a former executive director of the American Library Association, served as president of IFLA, served as Dean of the School of Library Service at Columbia University, and was university librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has also authored and edited several major reference works, and has won many awards over the course of his career.

Bertha Pleasant Williams (1923–2008) was the first black professional librarian in Montgomery, Alabama, United States. In 1948 the segregated city required a certified librarian as a prerequisite to open a library for the city's African American residents. Williams, who had recently graduated from Atlanta University, took the position, established the Union Street Library, and worked in libraries for most of her life.

Edward Christopher Williams was the first African-American professionally trained librarian in the United States. His sudden death in 1929 ended his career the year he was expected to receive the first Ph.D. in librarianship. Williams was born on February 11, 1871, in Cleveland, Ohio, to an African-American father and an Irish mother. Upon his graduation with distinction from Adelbert College of Western Reserve University in 1892, he was appointed Assistant Librarian of Hatch Library at WRU. Two years later, he was promoted to librarian of Hatch Library until 1909, when he resigned to assume the responsibility of the Principal of M Street High School in Washington, D.C. He continued his career as University Librarian of Howard University until his death on December 24, 1929. Williams was rediscovered as a Harlem Renaissance author with the 2004 publication of his novel When Washington Was in Vogue, considered among the earliest epistolary novels by an African American.

Pauline Alice Young was an African-American teacher, librarian, historian, lecturer, community activist, humanitarian, and individualist.