1940 – Native Son by Richard Wright is published; the work is a Book-of-the-Month Club selection.  

1941 –  Orson Welles directs stage adaption of Native Son by Richard Wright. Actor Canada Lee stars as Bigger Thomas.

1941 – Richard Wright receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal. 

1945 – If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes is published.

1946 – The Street by Ann Petry is published.

1952 – Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is published.

1953 – Ralph Ellison receives the National Book Award for Fiction for Invisible Man.

1953 – Go Tell It on The Mountain by James Baldwin is published.

1953 – The Outsider by Richard Wright is published.

1953 – Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks is published.

1959 – Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall is published.

1962 – And Then We Heard Thunder by John Oliver Killens is published.

1963 – Lawd Today! By Richard Wright is published posthumously.

1966 – Jubilee by Margaret Walker is published.

1967 – The Man Who Cried I Am by John A. Williams is published.