Black Firsts
Barack Obama
Who is the first black president of the USA?
MLK
Who gave the “I Have a Dream” speech?
Garrett Morgan
Who invented the traffic light and the gas mask?
Aretha Franklin
Who is known as the “Queen of Soul”?
Jackie Robinson
Who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947?
Shirley Chisholm
Who was the black woman elected to the US Congress?
Rosa Parks
Who refused to give up her bus seat, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
Rebecca Lee Crumpler
Who was the first Black woman to earn a medical degree in the U.S.?
Maya Angelou
What famous Black poet wrote “Still I Rise”?
Simone Biles
Who is the most decorated gymnast in history?
Thurgood Marshall
Who was the first black supreme court justice?
Malcolm X
Which civil rights leader was known for saying “By any means necessary”?
George Washington Carver
What Black scientist helped develop over 300 uses for peanuts?
James Brown
What musician was known as the “Godfather of Soul”?
Michael Jordan
Which basketball player is known as “His Airness”?
Mae Jemison
Who was the first black woman to travel to space?
NAACP
What organization did W.E.B. Du Bois help found in 1909?
Marie Van Brittan Brown
Who developed the first home security system?
Halle Berry
Who was the first Black woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress?
Althea Gibson
Who was the first Black woman to win a Grand Slam tennis title?
Oprah Winfrey
Who was the first Black woman to own a TV production company?
Claudette Colvin
Which activist was known as the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement” before Rosa Parks?
Toni Morrison
Who was the first Black person to win the Nobel Prize in Literature?
Ernie Barnes
What famous Black artist painted the “Sugar Shack,” made famous on “Good Times”?
Wendell Scott
Who was the first Black driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race?