WMara Brock Akil is an American screenwriter and television producer. She created UPN comedy series Girlfriends (2000–2008) and its spin-off The Game (2006–2015). She later created the first drama series for BET Being Mary Jane (2013–2019). In 2018, she produced Black Lightning for The CW and created Love Is for Oprah Winfrey Network.
WM. K. Asante is an American author, filmmaker, recording artist, and professor. He is best known for his best-selling memoir Buck.
WKenya Barris is an American actor, director, producer, and writer.
WHannibal Amir Buress is an American comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He started performing comedy in 2002 while attending Southern Illinois University. He co-starred on Adult Swim's The Eric Andre Show from 2012 to 2020 and was featured on Comedy Central's Broad City from 2014 to 2019.
WJared Quay Campbell is an American stand-up comedian, Host, Actor, and former football safety. He was born in Denver, Colorado. He played college football at the University of Miami and was a member of the Arizona Cardinals.
WNicholas Scott Cannon is an American comedian, rapper, and television host. On television, Cannon began as a teenager on All That before going on to host The Nick Cannon Show, Wild 'n Out, America's Got Talent, Lip Sync Battle Shorties and The Masked Singer. He acted in the films Drumline, Love Don't Cost a Thing and Roll Bounce.
WMax Cole is an American filmmaker.
WRyan Kyle Coogler is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. His first feature film, Fruitvale Station (2013), won the top audience and grand jury awards in the U.S. dramatic competition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. He has since co-written and directed the seventh film in the Rocky series, Creed (2015), and the Marvel film Black Panther (2018), the latter of which broke numerous box office records and became the highest-grossing film of all time by an African American director.
WAdam Davenport is an American actor, DJ, record producer, singer, songwriter and filmmaker. Davenport made his screen acting debut in Colombian filmmaker Esteban Uribe's Cleanse Pest, Rest as a transgender sex worker who becomes a victim of a hate crime. He has acted in several Off-Broadway productions, including Naked Boys Singing!, and appeared on several television shows, including the HBO series High Maintenance and the Starz series Sweetbitter.
WAva Marie DuVernay is an American filmmaker. She won the directing award in the U.S. dramatic competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for her second feature film Middle of Nowhere, becoming the first black woman to win the award. For her work on Selma (2014), DuVernay became the first black woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director, and also the first black female director to have her film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2017, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for her film 13th (2016).
WPierre Edwards known as Pierre, is an American actor, director, writer, and stand-up comedian. Pierre is best known for producing, writing, directing, and starring as Dre Mitchell in For Da Love of Money (2002), and starring in such films as 2001: A Space Travesty (2000), Def Jam's How to Be a Player (1997), and B*A*P*S (1997).
WRob Edwards is an American television and feature film screenwriter and producer. His writing includes the Disney animated feature films Treasure Planet and The Princess and the Frog, both of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. In 2009, along with Ron Clements and John Musker, Edwards was awarded the Best Screenplay award from the African-American Film Critics Association for The Princess and the Frog.
WAntwone Quenton Fisher is an American director, screenwriter, author, and film producer. His 2001 autobiographical book Finding Fish was a New York Times Best Seller. The 2002 film Antwone Fisher was written by Fisher and directed by Denzel Washington.
WGeoffrey Shawn Fletcher is an American screenwriter and film director. Fletcher is the screenwriter of Precious and received an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on March 7, 2010. He is the first African American to receive an Academy Award for writing. In September 2010, Fletcher began shooting Violet & Daisy in New York City based on his original script as his directorial debut. It was released in a limited theatrical run in June 2013.
WKeli Goff is an American journalist, playwright and screenwriter. She first came to prominence as a blogger and political commentator during the 2008 election, recognized for her contributions to The Huffington Post and her appearances on various television networks as a political pundit. She has appeared on CNN, Fox News, the BBC, MSNBC and other networks. She is the author of the book, Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence and the novel The GQ Candidate, released in July 2011.
WKevin Grevioux is an American actor, screenwriter, and comic book writer. He is best known for his role as Raze in the Underworld film series, which he co-created, as well as his voicework in the cartoon Young Justice as the villain Black Beetle.
WM. E. Holland is an American writer, director, producer, and actor. His production company, DelFlix Pictures, has produced one feature film and a music video. He wrote and directed his first film The Other Brother (2001). In 2007, he wrote the screenplay for Love and Other Four Letter Words. Holland's work covers controversial issues such as sexual abuse, toxic masculinity, American misogyny, and morality in the African American community.
WO'Shea Jackson, better known by his stage name Ice Cube, is an American rapper, actor, and filmmaker. His lyrics on N.W.A's 1988 album Straight Outta Compton contributed to gangsta rap's widespread popularity. His solo albums of 1990 and 1991 consist of political rap. In 1991 and 1995, entering film, he starred in Boyz n the Hood and cocreated Friday.
WJacquie Jones was an American public television film director, producer, writer and media executive. She was an editor of the Black Film Review from 1989 to 1993. She was executive director of Black Public Media from 2005 to 2014.
WLangston Kerman is an American actor, writer, and comedian. He is best known for portraying the role of Jared on HBO's Insecure. His first comedy album, Lightskinned Feelings, was released on September 28, 2018, the same day as his Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents special of the same name. The album was named to Vulture's list of 10 Best Comedy Albums of 2018.
WShelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and professor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut with She's Gotta Have It (1986). He has since written and directed such films as Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Malcolm X (1992), Crooklyn (1994), Clockers (1995), 25th Hour (2002), Inside Man (2006), Chi-Raq (2015), BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods (2020). Lee also acted in ten of his films.
WAttica Locke is an American fiction author and writer/producer for television and film.
WVictoria Mahoney is an American actress and filmmaker. Her debut feature was 2011’s Yelling to the Sky.
WPercy Robert Miller, also known by his stage name Master P, is an American rapper, actor, record producer, entrepreneur, and former basketball player. He is the founder of the record label No Limit Records, which was relaunched as New No Limit Records through Universal Records and Koch Records, then again as Guttar Music Entertainment, and currently, No Limit Forever Records. He is the founder and CEO of P. Miller Enterprises and Better Black Television, which was a short-lived online television network.
WJames McNair, known by his stage names Jimmy Mack and Uncle Jimmy Mack, was an American comedian and writer.
WCharles Quinton Murphy was an American actor, comedian, and writer. He was best known as a writer and cast member of the Comedy Central sketch-comedy series Chappelle's Show and as the co-star of the sitcom Black Jesus. He is the older brother of actor and comedian Eddie Murphy.
WEdward Regan Murphy is an American actor, comedian, writer, and singer. He rose to fame on the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which he was a regular cast member from 1980 to 1984. Murphy has also worked as a stand-up comedian and was ranked No. 10 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.
WEuzhan Palcy is a film director, writer and producer from Martinique, French West Indies. She is notable for being the first black woman director of a film produced by a major Hollywood studio (MGM), for A Dry White Season (1989), as well as being the only woman filmmaker to have directed Marlon Brando, whom she brought back to the screen after a gap of nine years. Palcy is the first black director to direct an actor to an Oscar nomination and the first black director to win a César Award, the highest French film award. She is also the first black director to win a Venice Film Festival Award.
WSuzan-Lori Parks is an American playwright, screenwriter, musician and novelist. Her 2001 play Topdog/Underdog won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002; Parks is the first African American woman to achieve this honor for drama.
WJordan Haworth Peele is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, writer, director, and producer. He is best known for his television and film work in the comedy and horror genres.
WTyler Perry is an American actor, writer, producer and director. In 2011, Forbes listed him as the highest-paid man in entertainment, earning US$130 million between May 2010 and May 2011.
WGina Prince-Bythewood is an American film director and screenwriter. She is known for directing the films Love & Basketball (2000), The Secret Life of Bees (2008), Beyond the Lights (2014), and The Old Guard (2020).
WRichard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential stand-up comedians of all time.
WJo-Issa Rae Diop, known as Issa Rae, is an American actress, writer, and producer. She first garnered attention for her work on the YouTube web series Awkward Black Girl. Since 2011, Rae has continued to develop her YouTube channel, which features various short films, web series, and other content created by people of color. She subsequently created, co-wrote, and starred in the HBO television series Insecure. For her acting on Insecure, she has received two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy and two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Rae has released a memoir, titled The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. Rae co-starred in the comedy Little (2019) and in 2020 starred in the drama The Photograph, the romantic comedy The Lovebirds, and the comedy Coastal Elites.
WMarkus William Redmond is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He is best known for his pivotal role as a hospital orderly "Raymond Alexander," in 71 episodes of the comedy-drama series Doogie Howser, M.D., co-created by legendary television producer, Steven Bochco; and for the famous police station scene it the cult classic Fight Club.
WDiandrea Rees is an American screenwriter and director. She is known for her feature films Pariah (2011), Bessie (2015), Mudbound (2017), and The Last Thing He Wanted (2020). Rees has also written and directed episodes for television series including Empire, When We Rise, and Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams.
WYoruba Richen is an American film director, screenwriter and producer.. Her work has been featured on PBS, New York Times Op Doc, Frontline Digital, New York Magazine’s website -The Cut, The Atlantic and Field of Vision. Her film The Green Book: Guide to Freedom was broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel to record audiences and was awarded the Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking.
WJohn Ridley IV is an American screenwriter, television director, novelist, and showrunner, known for 12 Years a Slave, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He is also the creator and showrunner of the critically acclaimed anthology series American Crime. His most recent work is the documentary film Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982–1992.
WChristopher Julius Rock is an American comedian, actor, television producer, and filmmaker.
WJustin Simien is an American filmmaker, actor, and author. His first feature film, Dear White People, won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Simien has also been named to Variety's 2013 "10 Directors to Watch" list.
WJohn Daniel Singleton was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. He was best known for writing and directing Boyz n the Hood (1991), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, becoming, at age 24, the first African American and youngest person to have ever been nominated for that award. Singleton was a native of South Los Angeles, and many of his films, such as Poetic Justice (1993), Higher Learning (1995), and Baby Boy (2001), had themes which resonated with the contemporary urban population. He also directed the drama Rosewood (1997) and the action films Shaft (2000), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), and Four Brothers (2005). He co-created the television crime drama Snowfall. He was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special for "The Race Card", the fifth episode of The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.
WJeff Stetson is an American writer best known for such novels and plays as Blood on the Leaves and The Meeting, a 1987 play about an imaginary meeting between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X in 1965 in a hotel in Harlem. The play was later televised on American Playhouse in 1989.
WDeon Taylor is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is the founder of Hidden Empire Film Group.
WGeorge Tillman Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director.
WAisha Naomi Tyler is an American actress, comedian, director and talk show host.
WKeenen Ivory Desuma Wayans Sr. is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, and a member of the Wayans family of entertainers. He first came to prominence as the host and the creator of the 1990–1994 Fox sketch comedy series In Living Color. He has produced, directed and/or written several films, starting with Hollywood Shuffle, which he cowrote, in 1987.
WSean Weathers is an American, New York City based, film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, casting director and actor. Weathers specializes in making low-budget films primarily in the erotic and horror genres using skeleton crews and guerrilla filmmaking tactics.
WKeisha Zollar is an American writer, comedian, and actress. She is a founding member of Upright Citizen Brigade Theatre's first all-black team Astronomy Club and is co-head writer for the group's Netflix series. Zollar was on the writing staff of Busy Tonight, and The Opposition with Jordan Klepper.