Take This Quiz to Find Out
Could you ace a Black culture quiz without Googling for the answer? Take this quiz to test your knowledge about the ways African Americans changed the country in the past 200 hundred years from inventions and music, to literature and the civil rights movement, and beyond.
1 What was the first historically Black college in America?
- Lincoln University
- Howard University
- Cheyney University
- Wiley College
2 Who invented the automatic fishing reel?
- George Cook
- W. B. Purvis
- Lewis Latimer
- O. Dorsey
3 At the time of her historic bus incident, what was Rosa Parks’ occupation?
- Hospital orderly
- Drugstore clerk
- High school cafeteria worker
- Department store seamstress
4 Who invented the three-position traffic signal in 1923 that includes the yellow light?
- J.P. Knight
- Garrett Morgan
- Benjamin Franklin
- Morgan Freeman
5 As a student at the Baltimore School of Performing Arts, rapper Tupac Shakur studies which classes?
- Hip-hop and poetry
- Theater and modern dance
- Music appreciation and film
- Ballet and poetry
6 What player hit 73 home runs in a season and earned Major League Baseball’s Silver Slugger Award 12 times?
- Jackie Robinson
- Barry Bonds
- Hank Aaron
- Willie Mays
7 In what Midwestern city did Dr. Hale Williams establish the first African American hospital?
- Indianapolis
- Detroit
- Chicago
- Kansas City
8 Which WASN’T a great jazz musician of the Harlem Renaissance?
- Duke Ellington
- Bessie Smith
- Louis Armstrong
- Rick James
9 What group launched the Freedom Rides in 1961?
- ACLU-American Civil Liberties Union
- SCLC-Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- CORE-Congress of Racial Equality
- SNCC-Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
10 Which of these influential authors became the first African American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature?
- Maya Angelou
- August Wilson
- Lorraine Hansberry
- Toni Morrison
11 Who was the first African American to graduate from Harvard University and become a U.S. senator?
- Blanche Bruce
- Hiram Rhodes Revels
- Colin Powell
- Thurgood Marshall
12 In 1968, who became the first African American woman elected to Congress?
- Barbara Jordan
- Maxine Waters
- Shirley Chisholm
- Carol Moseley Braun
13 Members of what labor union helped to build the nation’s black middle class and civil rights movement?
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
- American Federal of Teachers
- Communications Workers of America
- International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union
14 What was the first musical written, produced, and performed by African American?
- Sparkle
- Shuffle Along
- The Wiz
- Hamilton
15 Who is known as the father of Black History?
- Martin Luther King
- Carter G. Woodson
- Nat Turner
- Frederick Douglass
16 Who was denied permission to sing in the Daughters of the American Revolution auditorium because of her race in 1939, but later became the first Black person to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955?
- Marian Anderson
- Camilla Williams
- Grace Bumbry
- Angel Blue
1: On Feb. 25, 1837, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania became the nation’s first Historically Black College and University (HBCU).
2: In 1899, Black American inventor George Cook of Louisville, Kentucky, received a U.S. patent for an “Automatic Fishing Device” (No. 625,829). The device featured a trip lever activated by tension on the fishing line.
3: Department store seamstress
4: It’s entrepreneur and businessman Garrett Morgan, also the inventor of the gas mask.
5: Ballet and poetry
6: Barry Bonds
7: Provident Hospital was the first African American owned and operated hospital in America. Founded in 1891, Provident was established to provide Black Chicagoans with healthcare and medical training.
8: Rick James
9: CORE-Congress of Racial Equality
10: Toni Morrison
11: It’s Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican senator from Mississippi who later became president of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, which is now Alcorn State University.
12: Shirley Chisholm represented the 12th district of New York in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1969 to 1983.
13: Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
14: Shuffle Along
15: Carter G. Woodson was an African American writer and historian known as the ‘Father of Black History.’ He penned the influential book “The Mis-Education of the Negro.”
16: Marian Anderson
