Black History Month
Narrative
Firsts
Authors
Music
TV/Film
100
The "father of Black History."
Who is Dr. Carter G. Woodson?
In 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week.
100
This Jamaican born leader started the “Back to Africa” movement in the 1920’s in NYC in an attempt to get blacks to return to their ancestral home due to the racism and poor treatment in America.
Who is Marcus Garvey?
100
The first Black person to sit on the Supreme Court.
Who is Thurgood Marshall?
Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American lawyer and civil rights activist who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's first African-American justice.
100
This author of unfinished manuscript, "Remember This House", was expanded and adapted for cinema as the Academy Award–nominated documentary film "I Am Not Your Negro" (2016).
Who is "James Baldwin"?
Writer and playwright James Baldwin (born August 2, 1924, New York, New York—died December 1, 1987, Saint-Paul, France). One of the 20th century's greatest writers, Baldwin broke new literary ground with the exploration of racial and social issues in his many works. He was especially known for his essays on the Black experience in America.
100
The group who recorded this single in 1979.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mgYrl5JQg6jwgkAg3ZIXOG9nlWZGCfBY/view?usp=sharing
Who is "The Sugar Hill Gang"?
The first rap song to achieve commercial success was “Rapper‟s Delight.”
100
This actor played the role of Bill Cosby’s son Theo on The Cosby Show.
Who is Malcolm-Jamal Warner?
200
The year Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week.
What is 1926?
200
The first Black astronaut.
Who is Robert H. Lawrence, Jr?
Robert Henry Lawrence Jr. (October 2, 1935 – December 8, 1967) was a United States Air Force officer and the first African-American astronaut. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Lawrence graduated from Bradley University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. In June 1967, Lawrence successfully completed the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School (Class 66B) at Edwards AFB, California. The same month, he was selected by the USAF as an astronaut in the Air Force's Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL) program, thus becoming the country's first black astronaut.
200
Author of "Their Eyes Were Watching God"
Who is Zora Neale Hurston?
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891– January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on hoodoo. The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays.
Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama, and moved with her family to Eatonville, Florida, in 1894. She later used Eatonville as the setting for many of her stories. It is now the site of the "Zora! Festival", held each year in her honor.
200
The 1984 movie in which artist Prince had a starring role.
What is "Purple Rain"?
Purple Rain is a 1984 American rock musical drama film directed by Albert Magnoli, written by Magnoli and William Blinn, and produced by Robert Cavallo, Joseph Ruffalo and Steven Fargnoli. The film stars Prince in his acting debut playing The Kid, a character based in part on Prince himself. Purple Rain was developed to showcase Prince's talents, and the film contains several concert sequences.
200
In 2001, this actor become the second African American man to win an Academy Award for Best Actor in Training Day.
Who is Denzel Washington?
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor, director, and producer. He has been described as an actor who reconfigured "the concept of classic movie stardom", associating with characters defined by their grace, dignity, humanity, and inner strength.[1] He has received seventeen NAACP Image Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, one Tony Award,[2] and two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor for playing Union Army soldier Private Trip in the historical drama film Glory (1989), and Best Actor for his role as corrupt detective Alonzo Harris in the crime thriller Training Day (2001).[3] In 2020, The New York Times ranked him as the greatest actor of the twenty-first century.
300
The organization, created by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, responsible for helping establish Negro History Week as well as changing it to Black History Month.
The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH)
300
In 1961, this group of black and white volunteers traveled together on bus trips in the South to test desegregation of buses and restaurants.
Who are the "Freedom Riders"?
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them.
The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C. on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides, Oprah Winfrey invited all living Freedom Riders to join her TV program to celebrate their legacy. The episode aired on May 4, 2011.
300
The first African-American owned and operated newspaper in the United States.
What is the Freedom's Journal? (1826)
Freedom’s Journal was the first African American owned and operated newspaper in the United States. A weekly four column publication printed every Friday, Freedom’s Journal was founded by free born African Americans John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish on March 16, 1827 in New York City, New York.
300
Author of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”
Who is Alex Haley?
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (August 11, 1921 – February 10, 1992) was an American writer and the author of the 1976 book Roots: The Saga of an American Family. ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries of the same name and aired it in 1977 to a record-breaking audience of 130 million viewers. In the United States, the book and miniseries raised the public awareness of black American history and inspired a broad interest in genealogy and family history.
Haley's first book was The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1965, a collaboration through numerous lengthy interviews with Malcolm X.
300
In 1991 there were eight inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, including this husband and wife duo who sang “Proud Mary” in 1969.
Who are Ike & Tina Turner?
300
The creator, director, and host of the popular television show Soul Train from 1971 to 2006.
Who is "Don Cornelius"?
Cornelius was born on Chicago's South Side on September 27, 1936,[1] and raised in the Bronzeville neighborhood. After graduating from DuSable High School in 1954,[2] he joined the United States Marine Corps and served 18 months in Korea.
Originally a journalist and inspired by the civil rights movement, Cornelius recognized that in the late 1960s there were very few television venues in the United States for soul music. He introduced many African-American musicians to a larger audience as a result of their appearances on Soul Train, a program that was both influential among African Americans and popular with a wider audience.
As writer, producer, and host of Soul Train, Cornelius was instrumental in offering wider exposure to black musicians such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and Michael Jackson, as well as creating opportunities for talented dancers, setting a precedent for popular television dance programs.
400
The year that Negro History Week became Black History Month.
What is 1976? (Will accept the 1940s and/or the 1930s, unofficially)
400
During the transatlantic slave trade, the largest numbers of Africans were imported to these three countries.
What are Brazil, Jamaica, & Haiti?
400
The first Black licensed pilot.
Who is Bessie Coleman?
Bessie Coleman was an early American civil aviator. She was the first African-American woman and first Native-American to hold a pilot license. She earned her pilot license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921, and was the first black person to earn an international pilot's license.
400
Born Marguerite Annie Johnson, this American poet wrote "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969).
Who is "Maya Angelou"?
Born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri - died May 28, 2014, in North Carolina. Angelou studied drama and dance at San Francisco’s Labor School, but dropped out to become the city’s first black female cable car conductor. She worked on civil rights issues with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X and met Nelson Mandela while spending several years in Egypt and Ghana.
Angelou’s book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” was released in 1969. She would write six more books about her life, along with more than 30 other works.
400
From 1975 to 1980 this Disco star had eight gold records and two platinum records.
Who is "Donna Summer"?
LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012), was an American singer, songwriter and actress. She gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s and became known as the "Queen of Disco".
Summer earned a total of 42 hit singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 in her lifetime, with 14 of those reaching the top-ten.
400
In the television production of "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" this actor traced Jane Pittman's family history from slavery to the Civil Rights era.
Who is "Cicely Tyson"?
Cicely Tyson (December 19, 1924 – January 28, 2021) was an American actor and fashion model. In a career spanning more than seven decades, she became known for her portrayal of strong African-American women.
Tyson received three Primetime Emmy Awards, four Black Reel Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, one Tony Award, an honorary Academy Award, and a Peabody Award.
500
One of the reasons Negro History Week was originally in the month of February.
What are the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincolcn.
500
This cultural movement, sometimes referred to as "The New Negro Movement," took place in the 1920s and consisted of the thriving and expansion of Black arts.
What is the Harlem Renaissance?
500
First Black United States Senator was this man.
Who is Hiram Revels? (Mississippi, 1870)
A freeman his entire life, Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first African American to serve in the U.S. Congress. With his moderate political orientation and oratorical skills honed from years as a preacher, Revels filled a vacant seat in the United States Senate in 1870.
500
In 1773, she became the first known African-American woman to publish a book.
Who is Phillis Wheatley?
Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753 – December 5, 1784) was the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. Born in West Africa, she was sold into slavery at 7 and transported to North America to be enslaved by the Wheatley family of Boston. After she learned to read and write, they encouraged her poetry when they saw her talent. Wheatley was emancipated shortly after the publication of her book.
500
The Cotton Club, The Savoy, and Small's Paradise were major examples of this type of social venue during the Harlem Renaissance.
What are Nightclubs?
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater and politics centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after The New Negro, a 1925 anthology edited by Alain Locke. The movement also included the new African-American cultural expressions across the urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest United States affected by a renewed militancy in the general struggle for civil rights for African-Americans that occurred in the wake of civil rights struggles in the then-still-segregated US Armed Forces in WWI and which was further inspired by the NAACP, the Garveyite movement and the Russian Revolution, combined with the Great Migration of African-American workers fleeing the racist conditions of the Jim Crow Deep South,[1] Harlem being the final destination of the largest number of those who migrated north.
500
Sidney Poitier starred this famous movie about an interracial marriage.
What is "Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner"?
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American comedy-drama film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, and written by William Rose. It stars Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Hepburn, and features Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton.
The film was one of the few films of the time to depict an interracial marriage in a positive light, as interracial marriage historically had been illegal in most states of the United States. It was still illegal in 17 states—mostly Southern states—until June 12, 1967, six months before the film was released. Roughly two weeks after Tracy filmed his final scene (and two days after his death), anti-miscegenation laws were struck down by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia.
The film is notable for being the ninth and final on-screen pairing of Tracy and Hepburn, with filming ending just 17 days before Tracy's death. Hepburn never saw the completed film, saying the memories of Tracy were too painful. The film was released in December 1967, six months after his death.
In 1998, the film was ranked #99 on the 100 Years...100 Movies list, by the American Film Institute.
600
First Black Endocrinologist at Boston Children's Hospital.
Who is "this first is YET TO COME!"?
600
Born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, this author wrote "The Bluest Eye", published in 1970.
Who is "Toni Morrison"?
February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019, Toni Morrison, was an American novelist, essayist, book editor, and college professor. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987); she gained worldwide recognition when she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.[3]
Born and raised in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English.[4] In 1955, she earned a master's degree in American Literature from Cornell University.
In the late 1960s, she became the first black female editor in fiction at Random House in New York City. In the 1970s and 1980s, she developed her own reputation as an author, and her perhaps most celebrated work, Beloved, was made into a 1998 film. Her works are praised for addressing the harsh consequences of racism in the United States.
In 1996, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected her for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. Also that year, she was honored with the National Book Foundation's Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. On May 29, 2012, President Barack Obama presented Morrison with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2016, she received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. In 2020, Morrison was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.[6]
600
This person wrote "Lift Every Voice and Sing," more commonly known as the Black National Anthem.
Who is James Weldon Johnson?
James Weldon Johnson
BornDiedResting placeOccupationLanguageNationalityCitizenshipAlma materPeriodSubjectLiterary movementNotable worksNotable awardsSpouse
Photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1932
June 17, 1871
Jacksonville, Florida, United StatesJune 26, 1938 (aged 67)
Wiscasset, Maine, United StatesGreen-Wood Cemetery, New York City, NYAuthor, activist, educator, lawyer, diplomatEnglishAmericanUnited StatesClark Atlanta UniversityHarlem Renaissance (1891- 1938)Civil RightsHarlem Renaissance"Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing", The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, God's Trombones, Along This WaySpingarn Medal from NAACP, Harmon Gold AwardGrace Nail Johnson
James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1876 – June 26, 1938) was an American writer and civil rights activist. He was married to civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson. Johnson was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he started working in 1917. In 1920, he was the first African American to be chosen as executive secretary of the organization, effectively the operating officer. Johnson established his reputation as a writer, and was known during the Harlem Renaissance for his poems, novels, and anthologies collecting both poems and spirituals of black culture. He wrote the lyrics for "Lift Every Voice and Sing", which later became known as the Negro National Anthem.
600
Halle Berry won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 2001 for this film.
What is "Monster’s Ball"?