10 Black Showrunners You Should Know

Despite there being far too many firsts still left to achieve, Black creators have indelibly left their mark on the television landscape for decades.

Just think of names like Shonda Rhimes (“Grey’s Anatomy”), Lee Daniels (“Empire”), and Quinta Brunson (“Abbott Elementary”), whose series went on to become credited for reviving network television, or writers like Issa Rae (“Insecure”), Donald Glover (“Atlanta”), and Lena Waithe (“The Chi”), who have been able to build their own sort of TV empire with the shows they have written and/or produced.

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Even networks like BET, Starz, and MTV still run off of the creative ingenuity of executive producers like Tyler Perry (“Sistas”), Courtney A. Kemp (“Power”), Mona Scott-Young (“Love and Hip Hop”), and even RuPaul (“RuPaul’s Drag Race”).

Often when retelling the story of Black representation on television, there is first acknowledgment of how the writers rooms initially were not reflective of what their casts looked like. While Black-led series reached their network TV peak in the 1990s, things would swing so far into the other direction during the new millennium that just about every major Black female actress auditioned for “Scandal” in 2011, as it was the first network show in years to center on a Black woman. It is hard to say if much has improved, since, as just as quickly are we are getting hit shows like “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” we are losing shows like “Rap Sh!t” helmed by Black creators.

Being tasked with compiling a list of 10 Black Showrunners to Watch, it feels important to highlight a group that has mostly stood the test of time, with multiple celebrated shows that have them listed as the creator. If it seems like a name is missing, “Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris and “The Bernie Mac Show” creator Larry Wilmore (the first Black writer to win a comedy writing Emmy) being prime examples, it is because they have settled into helping other writers get their projects off the ground rather than actively showrunning. There are also a class of writers a little bit newer to town, like “Harlem” creator Tracy Oliver and “I May Destroy You” creator Michaela Coel, or showrunners with currently only one (great) show to their name, like “P-Valley” creator Katori Hall or “Pose” creator Steven Canals.

For the most part, these 10 showrunners are both responsible for shows that have shaped TV history throughout the years, and current series that are gaining them a whole new group of fans.

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