The National Black Writers Conference (NBWC) and the NBWC Biennial Symposium are major programs of the Center. Initially inspired by the late John Oliver Killens, the Conference has been held at Medgar Evers College since 1986. It aims to expand the scope and appreciation of literature and scholarship produced by and about the artists whose experiences and works reflect the African Diaspora and the African continent itself. The Conference convenes students, faculty, acclaimed authors, and literary critics and brings together the literary community, educators, students, and the general public to have conversations on emerging themes and trends in literature produced by Black writers. The Center for Black Literature continued the tradition of presenting the Conference in 2003 instituted the symposium in 2005.

The major conference is held biennially over a three-to-four day period and a biennial symposium, focused on a major writer or overarching social theme, is held for one day in alternate years. Honorees have included Toni Morrison, Derek Walcott, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Rita Dove, Nikki Giovanni, Edwidge Danticat, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, Sonia Sanchez, Quincy Troupe, Walter Mosley, Dr. Myrlie Evers-Williams, Randall Robinson, Kamau Brathwaite, Michael Eric Dyson, Susan L. Taylor, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, David Levering Lewis, Charles Johnson, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes, Ishmael Reed, and Colson Whitehead among many others.

Through its NBWC Symposia, the Center has acknowledged the works of inspiring people such as Gwendolyn Brooks, August Wilson, Audre Lorde, Octavia E. Butler, June Jordan, Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, and Danny Glover.

NBWC was first convened over a period of four days to bring together writers, critics, booksellers, book reviewers, and the general public in order to establish a dialogue on the social responsibility of the Black writer. Since 1986, subsequent conferences (1988, 1991, 1996, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022) have expanded this conversation to include discussions on stereotypes in Black literature; the renaissance in Black literature; race, history, and identity in Black literature; the impact of migration, popular culture and the natural environment in Black literature; reconstructing the master narrative; and healing, legacy, and activism in Black literature. Each subsequent Conference is built on the theme of the previous one and attracts audiences worldwide.

Maya Angelou was the keynote speaker for the first Conference, Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison was Honorary Chair for the Tenth National Black Writers Conference (2010) and Dr. Myrlie Evers-Williams, wife of the late civil rights activist Medgar Wiley Evers, was the Honorary Chair for the Eleventh National Black Writers Conference (2012).

The audience for the Conferences is comprised of people from the New York tri-state area, the United States, and all over the world, including Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and Canada. An average of 2,000 people attend the Conference over several days. The Center has also received widespread media coverage for the NBWC, including coverage on C-SPAN Book TV, national television and National Public Radio, and articles in The New York Times, Poets & Writers, the New York Amsterdam News, Our Time Press, BKReader.com, The Network Journal, and numerous magazines, newspapers, blogs, and journals throughout the country.