Famous Firsts
History of History
BSAY
By the Numbers
Hodge Podge
100
The first Black President of an Ivy League University.
Who is Ruth Simmons? (Brown, 2001)
100
The year of the first Black History Month.
What is 1976?
100
The year BSAY was founded.
What is 1967?
100
The number of years since the Emancipation Proclamation.
What is 150.
100
This rapper's name comes from a New York City subway line.
Who is Jay-Z?
200
The first Black Editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Who is Charles Hamilton Houston? (1919) (Barack Obama was the first Black President of the Harvard Law Review)
200
Their February birthdays are the reasons Black History Month falls in February.
Who are Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass?
200
BSAY facilitated the creation of this major, the first of its kind in the country.
What is African American Studies? (formerly Black Studies)
200
The number of years since the March on Washington?
What is 50.
200
This famous performer served as a spy for France in World War II.
Who is Josephine Baker?
300
The first Black U.S. cabinet member.
Who is Robert C. Weaver (Secretary of HUD, 1966-1968)
300
Created the original 'Negro History Week' in 1926.
Who is Dr. Carter G. Woodson?
300
Prior to 1970, the Afro-American Cultural Center housed this Yale student group.
What is the fraternity, Chi Psi?
300
The year Vermont became the first state to abolish slavery?
What is 1777?
300
Muhammad Ali is named after this 19th-century abolitionist and politician.
Who is Cassius Marcellus Clay?
400
The first basketball player to score 100 points in a single game. Also the first to score 30,000 points in the NBA.
Who is Wilt Chamberlain?
400
This country has been celebrating their own Black History month since 1987.
What is the United Kingdom?
400
The year BSAY politically protested the Black Panther Trials in New Haven.
What is 1970?
400
The year the final Buffalo solider (soldiers in all-Black regiments) died.
What is 2005? (He was 111 years old.)
400
This scientist and mathematician is credited with helping to design the blueprints for Washington, D.C.
Who is Benjamin Banneker?
500
The first African American to earn a Ph.D in Nuclear Engineering who is also credited with inventing the cell phone.
Who is Henry Sampson?
500
A leading critic of Black History Month who said: "I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history."
Who is Morgan Freeman?
500
The year BSAY's constitution no longer included "African heritage" as a qualification for membership.
What is 1986?
500
The number of Black U.S. Senators. (Ever.)
What is 5? Hiram Revels, Edward Brooke, Carol Mosely Braun, Blanche K. Bruce, Barack Obama
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