A short, select list of African American Biographies

A few biographies 

• 1973: The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright by Michel Fabre
• 1977: Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography by Robert Hemenway
• 1986: The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume I: 1902-1941: I, Too, Sing America by Arnold Rampersad
• 1986: The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume II: 1941-1967: I Dream a World by Arnold Rampersad
• 1988: Richard Wright, Daemonic Genius: A Portrait of the Man by Margaret Walker
• 1993: W. E. B. Du Bois, 1868-1919: Biography of a Race by David Levering Lewis
• 2000: W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919-1963 by David Levering Lewis
• 2001: Richard Wright: The Life and Times by Hazel Rowley
• 2002: Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd
• 2003: Harriet Jacobs: A Life by Jean Yellin
• 2004: Alice Walker: A Life by Evelyn C. White
• 2007: Ralph Ellison: A Biography by Arnold Rampersad
• 2010: John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism by Keith Gilyard
• 2011: Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
• 2013: Nikki Giovanni: A Literary Biography by Virginia C. Fowler
• 2017: Chester B. Himes: A Biography by Lawrence P. Jackson
• 2018: The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart
• 2018: Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
• 2018: Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry
• 2020: The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne

• 2021: Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay by Shanna Greene Benjamin 

• 2021: Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer by Kate Clifford Larson

• 2021: Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America by Keisha N. Blain

Related:
• Malcolm X, Biography Work, and the University of Georgia

• A Bibliography of Black Writer Biographies