Popular people
She was arrested for refusing to sit at the back of the bus.
Who is Rosa Parks?
An intellectual and cultural movement of African-American art in the 1920s.
What is the Harlem Renaissance?
The practice of shifting between two or more different styles of speech depending on the audience/environment.
What is Code-switching?
Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, this machine separates cotton fibers from their seeds.
What is the Cotton Gin? [History Fact: It was built with the intention of reducing the need for slaves, but demand ended up skyrocketing.]
A series of violent civil confrontations between 1854 and 1859, emerging from a political and ideological debate over whether slavery should be permitted in this newly proposed state.
What is Bleeding Kansas?
South African anti-apartheid activist and the first president of South Africa.
Who is Nelson Mandela?
The movement of five million African Americans out of the rural south to urban areas in other parts of the US.
What is The Great Migration?
Wordplay designed to be understood in two different ways.
What is a Double Entendre? [History Fact: Some popular songs utilizing this technique would be Kendrick Lamar’s “The Blacker The Berry” and “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday.]
Founded by Robert Sengstacke Abbott, this paper helped report against Jim Crow era violence and racial segregation.
What is the Chicago Defender?
Historically Black women's liberal arts school located in Atlanta, Georgia that’s labeled the top ranked HBCU.
What is Spelman College?
The first permanent non-indigenous resident of Chicago.
Who is Jean Baptiste Point DuSable? [History Fact: He was born 1745 in Haiti and married a Potawatomi woman named Katherine, establishing a successful trading post near Lake Michigan together.]
The period following the American Civil War, marked by many broken promises.
What is The Reconstruction Era?
A group of rappers or beatboxers improvising, typically in a circle.
What is a Cypher?
Originating in the Deep South in the 1860s, this style incorporates spirituals, work songs, shouts, chants, and the narrative ballads of African American culture.
What is Blues?
The last school to be desegregated in the United States after a court order in 2016.
What is Cleveland Highschool?
America’s first black millionaire.
Who is Madam C.J. Walker?
The historical and discriminatory practice of denying financial services, such as mortgages and insurance, to residents of specific neighborhoods based on race/ethnicity instead of creditworthiness. Instituted in the 1930s by the federal government, this practice was outlawed by the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
What is Redlining?
Coined in the mid 1990s, this is an term to describe the way black people talk.
What is African American Vernacular English (AAVE)?
Invented by Garrett Morgan in 1923, this invention can be spotted near most major streets.
What is the Three Light Traffic Light?
Where Tommie Smith and John Carlos protested racial inequality in the U.S. by raising black-gloved fists.
What are the Mexico 1968 Summer Olympics? [History Fact: Australian silver medalist Peter Norman wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) badge in support of the two American athletes.]
Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), this group rode interstate buses into the U.S. South in 1961 to challenge the non-enforcement of Supreme Court rulings that deemed segregated public buses unconstitutional.
Who are the Freedom Riders?
The only successful slave revolt that led to a nation ruled by former slaves.
What is The Haitian Revolution? [History Fact: Despite winning the war, Haiti was still forced to pay France over $30 billion in reparations.]
To drop the verb “to be” in the present tense (eg. “They smart”).
What is Copula Deletion?
Created in 1982 by Lonnie Johnson, this invention is a popular 90’s childhood toy.
What is the Super Soaker?
City where Nelson Mandela was arrested, beginning his 27 year imprisonment- a profound symbol of resistance, unity, and his personal sacrifice for the apartheid movement.
What is KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (or the Nelson Mandela Capture site)?