Black History Month 1
These two black sisters revolutionized tennis.
Who are Serena and Venus Williams?
This major league baseball player broke the MLB color barrier in 1947.
Who is Jackie Robinson?
This female abolitionist and political activist escaped slavery and rescued enslaved people using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. Who was she?
Who is Harriet Tubman?
This iconic leader delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Who is Martin Luther King Jr.?
The evolution of jazz music started in this city.
What is Harlem, New York?
This 14-year-old’s 1955 murder in Mississippi after allegedly whistling at a white woman helped ignite the Civil Rights Movement.
Who is Emmett Till?
This 2016 film is the story of Katherine Johnson, who calculated flight trajectories for Project Mercury and other missions. Her hand calculations successfully launched John Glenn into orbit in 1962.
What is Hidden Figures?
She's the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
Who is Kentanji Brown Jackson?
This lawyer and civil rights activist was the first African American justice to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
Who is Thurgood Marshall?
Before Rosa Parks, this 15-year-old girl refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus in March 1955.
Who is Claudette Colvin?
In 2002, she became the first Black person to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT), having won her Oscar for "Ghost" in 1991.
Who is Whoopi Goldberg?
In the early 1900s, this woman became the first female African American self-made millionaire by creating a line of hair care products.
Who is Madam CJ Walker?
This author wrote Praiseong for the Kitchen Ghosts and was the 2025 recipient of Centenary's John William Corrington Award for Literary Excellence.
Who is Crystal Wilkinson?
First Black woman to host her own nationally syndicated talk show in 1986, revolutionizing daytime television.
Who is Oprah Winfrey?
A group of Black pilots who became legendary for their success in World War II.
Tuskegee Airmen
This activist declared, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress,” in his 1857 speech on abolition and self-determination.
Who is Frederick Douglass?
This Black woman was the first to hold a commercial pilot's license in the U.S.
Who is Bessie Coleman?
In the early 1900s, the prosperous Greenwood district in this city became known as "Black Wall Street."
What is Tulsa, Oklahoma?
Released in 1939, this haunting song made famous by Billie Holiday brought the brutal reality of Southern lynchings to mainstream attention.
What is "Strange Fruit"?
In 1987, this neurosurgeon led the team that successfully separated Siamese twins joined at the head.
*HINT: there is a movie about him starring Cuba Gooding Jr.*
Who is Ben Carson?
To comply with a 1786 Spanish colonial law, women of color in New Orleans, Louisiana, were forced to cover their hair with this headwrap.
What is a tignon?
In August 1831, this enslaved preacher led a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, that resulted in the deaths of over 50 white people.
Who is Nat Turner?
Known as the "Father of Black History," he initiated Negro History Week in 1926.
Who is Carter J. Woodson?
The modern-day banjo is a direct descendant of this 3-stringed West African folk lute, featuring a gourd body and a short drone string, played by the Jola people.
What is the Akonting?
During his 1976 campaign, this future U.S. President popularized the derogatory "welfare queen" stereotype, which depicts an African American woman supposedly exploiting welfare programs.
Who is Ronald Reagan?