William Gustavus Allen (ca. 1820–1 May 1888) was an African-American academic, intellectual, and lecturer. For a time he co-edited The National Watchman, an abolitionist newspaper. While studying law in Boston he lectured widely on abolition, equality, and integration. He was then appointed a professor of rhetoric and Greek at New-York Central College, the second African-American college professor in the United States. (The first was his predecessor at Central College, Charles L. Reason.) He saw himself as an academic and intellectual.