Twenty questions about the people and turning points of African American history, from Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass to Thurgood Marshall, Katherine Johnson and Juneteenth.
Which historian created Negro History Week in 1926, the forerunner of Black History Month?
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Carter G. Woodson
Woodson chose the second week of February to include the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
Question 2
Which president first officially recognized Black History Month, in 1976?
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Gerald Ford
Ford urged Americans to honor the often-neglected accomplishments of Black Americans during the US bicentennial.
Question 3
Who was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama?
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Rosa Parks
Her arrest started the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott. Claudette Colvin, 15, had refused nine months earlier.
Question 4
Who was the first African American to serve on the US Supreme Court?
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Thurgood Marshall
Marshall joined the Court in 1967. As a lawyer he had argued and won Brown v. Board of Education.
Question 5
Who was the first Black woman elected to the US Congress?
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Shirley Chisholm
Chisholm won a House seat from Brooklyn in 1968 and ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972.
Question 6
Which 1954 Supreme Court decision ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional?
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Brown v. Board of Education
The unanimous ruling overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
Question 7
Which conductor on the Underground Railroad was nicknamed "Moses"?
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Harriet Tubman
After escaping slavery in 1849, Tubman returned to Maryland about 13 times to guide some 70 people to freedom.
Question 8
Which scientist is famous for developing hundreds of uses for the peanut and the sweet potato?
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George Washington Carver
Carver taught at the Tuskegee Institute and promoted crop rotation to restore soil worn out by cotton.
Question 9
Which athlete won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics?
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Jesse Owens
Owens won the 100 m, 200 m, long jump and 4 × 100 m relay, undercutting Nazi claims of racial superiority.
Question 10
Who was the first African American astronaut to fly in space, in 1983?
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Guion Bluford
Bluford flew on the space shuttle Challenger in August 1983. Robert Lawrence, chosen for an Air Force space program in 1967, died in a training crash that year.
Question 11
What does Juneteenth commemorate?
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The day in 1865 when news of emancipation reached enslaved people in Galveston, Texas
Union troops announced freedom in Galveston on June 19, 1865. Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.
Question 12
Who wrote the 1969 memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?
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Maya Angelou
It was the first of Angelou's seven autobiographies. She read her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration.
Question 13
Which abolitionist published the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845?
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Frederick Douglass
Douglass wrote it himself, seven years after escaping slavery, and it became a bestseller.
Question 14
Who were the Tuskegee Airmen?
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The first Black military pilots in the US armed forces
They trained in Tuskegee, Alabama, and flew combat missions in World War II, including escort missions over Europe.
Question 15
Which NASA mathematician's work was portrayed in the film Hidden Figures?
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Katherine Johnson
Johnson calculated trajectories for Alan Shepard's and John Glenn's flights. The film also featured Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson.
Question 16
Who was the first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1950?
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Ralph Bunche
Bunche won for negotiating the 1949 armistice agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors. King won in 1964.
Question 17
Which entrepreneur is often cited as the first female self-made millionaire in America?
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Madam C. J. Walker
Walker built a hair-care business in the early 1900s and was known for her philanthropy and for training thousands of saleswomen.
Question 18
The 1965 voting-rights marches went from Selma to which Alabama city?
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Montgomery
The first attempt ended in violence on "Bloody Sunday," March 7. The third march reached Montgomery on March 25.
Question 19
Which Harlem Renaissance poet wrote "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"?
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Langston Hughes
Hughes wrote it at 17 and published it in 1921. He became one of the defining voices of the Harlem Renaissance.
Question 20
Which 1965 law outlawed discriminatory voting practices such as literacy tests?
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The Voting Rights Act
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it on August 6, 1965, months after the Selma marches.
Key numbers
Questions
20
Format
Multiple choice, 4 options
Explanations
Every question
Answers
Hidden until you open them
What this set covers
The questions follow American history from the Underground Railroad through Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights movement and the space program. Alongside the best-known names there are people every quiz should include more often: Claudette Colvin, Shirley Chisholm, Guion Bluford, Ralph Bunche and Madam C. J. Walker.
How we wrote it
Each answer was checked against the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Library of Congress or the National Archives. Where a "first" depends on how it's defined, the explanation says so, as with Claudette Colvin's protest nine months before Rosa Parks's.
From well-known names to deeper cuts
The set starts with names most people know, such as Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and Jesse Owens, and moves to questions that reward wider reading: the first African American astronaut, the first Black woman in Congress and the Nobel laureate who negotiated the 1949 armistice. Every explanation adds a date or detail that helps the answer stick.
Using it for Black History Month
Black History Month began as Negro History Week in 1926 and is observed every February. Read one question a day during the month in a classroom or at work, or use all twenty as a single round. For broader US history, try our history trivia and presidents quiz.
Questions people ask
When is Black History Month?
February in the United States and Canada. It grew out of Negro History Week, created by historian Carter G. Woodson in 1926, and was first officially recognized by President Gerald Ford in 1976.
What are good Black History Month trivia questions for work or school?
Questions about civil rights milestones and notable firsts, such as Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court or Katherine Johnson at NASA. This set has twenty, each with a short explanation.
What is Juneteenth?
June 19, which marks the day in 1865 when Union troops announced the end of slavery in Galveston, Texas. It became a federal holiday in 2021.