Famous Speeches
This famous 1963 speech by Martin Luther King Jr. was delivered during the March on Washington and called for racial equality.
What is I Have a Dream?
This woman’s refusal to give up her bus seat in Montgomery helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Who is Rosa Parks?
This is a free point if you are registered to vote!
I'm registered!
This song, written by James Weldon Johnson and his brother, is often called the “Black National Anthem.”
What is Lift Every Voice and Sing?
This 1954 Supreme Court case declared school segregation unconstitutional.
What is Brown v. Board of Education?
This speech questioned both racial and gender inequality by repeating a powerful phrase at a women’s rights convention in Ohio.
What is Ain't I a Woman??
This abolitionist helped guide enslaved people to freedom through the Underground Railroad.
Who is Harriet Tubman?
These unfair tests were used across the South to prevent many Black Americans from registering to vote during the Jim Crow era.
What are literacy tests?
This organization, which Malcolm X was a leading spokesperson for in the 1950s and early 1960s, promoted Black nationalism and self-sufficiency before his split from the group.
What is the Nation of Islam?
This group of nine Black students integrated Central High School in Little Rock under federal protection in 1957.
Who are the Little Rock Nine?
This speech argued that African Americans should use the vote to gain political power, while warning that other methods could follow if justice was denied.
What is The Ballot or the Bullet?
This activist, scholar, and former member of the Black Panther Party became internationally known after being put on the FBI’s Most Wanted list in 1970.
Who is Angela Davis?
This 1965 event, led by civil rights activists marching from Selma to Montgomery, helped build support for stronger voting protections.
What are the Selma to Montgomery marches?
After refusing military service during the Vietnam War, this heavyweight boxing champion was stripped of his title and became a major symbol of Black resistance and anti-war activism.
Who is Muhammad Ali?
Founded in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, this organization promoted Black self-defense and community programs.
What is the Black Panther Party?
Written in response to criticism from white clergymen, this famous work defended direct action against segregation while its author was imprisoned in Alabama.
What is Letter from Birmingham Jail?
In 1968, this politician became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress and later ran for president with the slogan “Unbought and Unbossed.”
Who is Shirley Chisholm?
Before the Voting Rights Act, many Black voters in Southern states were forced to pay this type of fee before they could cast a ballot.
What is a poll tax?
This author, known for essays on race, sexuality, and identity, wrote The Fire Next Time while critically examining racism in the United States.
Who is James Baldwin?
This 1963 campaign protest from April 3rd to May 10th in Birmingham, Alabama, drew national attention after police used dogs and fire hoses against demonstrators.
What is the Birmingham campaign?
This work by Maya Angelou uses repeated imagery of rising despite oppression to express resilience, pride, and survival.
What is Still I Rise?
This journalist and anti-lynching activist co-owned the newspaper The Free Speech and exposed racial violence in the South during the late 1800s.
Who is Ida B. Wells?
Signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson, this landmark 1965 law outlawed discriminatory voting practices used against Black Americans. *Hint: Currently threatened by the recent Supreme Court ruling, Louisiana v. Callais, leading to rampant gerrymandering and illegal voter suppression in southern states.*
What is the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
This concept, developed by W. E. B. Du Bois, describes the internal struggle of Black Americans between their African heritage and American identity.
What is double consciousness?
This 1961 interracial activist group rode buses through the South to challenge segregation in interstate travel.
Who were the Freedom Riders?