Mara Brock Akil

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BiographyMara Brock Akil (born May 27, 1970) is an American television writer and producer. She began her screenwriting career at age 23 on South Central (1994) on Fox. At age 30, she became the youngest African American showrunner on broadcast network television when she created the sitcom Girlfriends, airing on UPN (2000–06) and its successor The CW (2006–08), and is the first African American female showrunner to have two series concurrently on broadcast network TV when she created its spin-off The Game on The CW (2006–09) before moving to BET (2011–15).

She created Being Mary Jane (2013–19), which was BET's first drama series, and The Game sequel series (2021–22) on Paramount+. She co-created romantic drama Love Is (2018) on OWN and executive produced the DC Arrowverse series Black Lightning (2018–21) on The CW with her husband Salim Akil. The duo founded Akil Productions in 2000. She founded Story27 with Netflix in 2021, creating her sixth series with romantic teen drama Forever (2025).

She was a writer and producer on Moesha (1996–99) on UPN, The Jamie Foxx Show (1999–2000) on The WB, Cougar Town (2010) on ABC and theatrical film Sparkle (2012). Brock Akil is the only African American showrunner to have series on TV every year of the 2000s. Her scripted series were two of only four in 2007 and 2008 and was one of only two in 2009 with a predominantly Black cast on broadcast network TV.

Biography from the Wikipedia article Mara Brock Akil. Licensed under CC-BY-SA. Full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

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GenreDrama, History