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- Dwayne Wade
- Alice Walker (born 1944)
- Margaret Walker
- Frank X. Walker, founding member of Affrilachian poets
- Christopher George Latore Wallace
- Eric Walrond (1898-1966)
- Marilyn Nelson Waniek
- Douglas Turner Ward
- Booker T. Washington
- Carl Weber
- Ida B. Wells (1862–1931)
- Richard Wesley, playwright, screenwriter
- Valerie Wilson Wesley
- Cornel West
- Dorothy West
- Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784), first published African-American poet
- Walter Francis White (1893–1955)
- Colson Whitehead, novelist (The Intuitionist) and journalist
- Steven Whitehurst (born 1967), award-winning author
- Anthony Whyte
- John Edgar Wideman
- Crystal Wilkinson
- Chancellor Williams
- John Alfred Williams
- Samm-Art Williams, playwright
- Sherley Anne Williams
- Walter E. Williams
- August Wilson
- Harriet E. Wilson, author of Our Nig and the first African-American novelist
- William Julius Wilson, author of When Work Disappears, The Truly Disadvantaged, and The Declining Significance of Race
- Oprah Winfrey
- Carter G. Woodson
- Jay Wright, poet
- Kelly Wright, author of Outed Obsession and Fatal Fixation
- Richard Wright
Read more about this topic: List Of African-American Writers