The System They Built
This 1787 compromise allowed slave states to count enslaved people as partial citizens for representation.
What is the Three-Fifths Compromise?
This 1863 executive order by President Lincoln declared enslaved people in Confederate states free.
What is the Emancipation Proclamation?
Known for “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” this writer was a key voice of the Harlem Renaissance.
Who is Zora Neale Hurston?
In 1968, she became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress.
Who is Shirley Chisholm?
She became the first African American woman in space in 1992.
Who is Dr. Mae Jemison?
This cash crop drove the Southern economy and depended heavily on enslaved labor.
What is cotton?
This federal agency provided food, housing, education, and legal aid to formerly enslaved people after the Civil War.
What is the Freedmen’s Bureau?
This “Godfather of Soul” became an anthem-maker with “Say it Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud.”
Who is James Brown?
This civil rights icon and Congressman had his skull fractured during the Selma march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Who is John Lewis?
She developed mathematical equations that helped NASA launch John Glenn into orbit.
Who is Katherine Johnson?
This abolitionist said, “I stole my body back from slavery—and now I use my voice.”
Who is Frederick Douglass?
This amendment to the Constitution officially abolished slavery in the United States.
What is the 13th Amendment?
This television show, launched in the 1970s, featured iconic Black dancers and music artists every week.
What is Soul Train?
This legal legend argued Brown v. Board of Education and later became the first Black Supreme Court Justice.
Who is Thurgood Marshall?
In 1950, he became the first Black American to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomatic work.
Who is Ralph Bunche?
Southern wealth and political power were mainly built on this unpaid labor system.
What is slavery?
These discriminatory laws emerged in the South after Reconstruction to restrict Black freedoms.
What are Jim Crow laws?
The 1920s cultural movement celebrated Black art, music, literature, and pride.
What is the Harlem Renaissance?
Elected mayor of Atlanta in 1973, he became the first Black mayor of a major Southern city.
Who is Maynard Jackson?
This groundbreaking 1954 Supreme Court case ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
What is Brown v. Board of Education?
This agreement at the Constitutional Convention protected the international slave trade for 20 more years.
What is the Slave Trade Compromise?
This informal political deal ended Reconstruction by withdrawing federal troops from the South.
What is the Compromise of 1877?
This global protest slogan surged in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd.
What is Black Lives Matter?
In 2021, she made history as the first woman, first Black person, and first person of South Asian descent to serve as U.S. Vice President.
Who is Kamala Harris?
In 1992, she became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
Who is Carol Moseley Braun?