***I know of no member of the black race that was ever the leader of an empire or super power. ***
At the tribal level there was SHAKA.
A little known fact about Shaka and the Zulus, they were so bloodthirsty that the area we know as the Transvaal and the Orange Free State was completely depopulated. In that area of South Africa they killed everybody in sight, left the area without people. When the Boers trekked into the area in the early 1800’s they found no people, just skulls and bones. The Boers created their homeland within this depopulated region thanks to the Zulus. The ancestors of the current African population arrived after the Boers settled the area.