The Arts
Along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, what type of music is played with the accordion?
Zydeco
Who wrote "Their Eyes Were Watching God" ?
Zora Neale Hurston
Which one of composer/pianist Anthony Davis' operas premiered in Philadelphia in 1985 and was performed by the New York City Opera in 1986?
X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X
Since 1987, who has held the position of director of jazz at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City?
Wynton Marsalis
Of what profession were Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Countee Cullen, major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance?
Writers
“Go Down, Moses” and “Nobody Knows the Trouble I‟ve Seen” are known as what type of songs?
Spirituals
Who published The Escape , the first play written by a Black American?
William Wells Brown
What is the given name of blues great W.C. Handy?
William Christopher Handy
Who directed an award-winning documentary about the government's response to Hurricane Katrina and ways in which the storm's aftermath affected African-Americans?
Spike Lee
Nat Love wrote what kind of stories?
Westerns
Cartoonist Morrie Turner created what world famous syndicated comic strip?
Wee Pals
Who was born in Florence, Alabama in 1873 and is called “Father of the Blues”?
WC Handy
Georgia Douglas Johnson was a poet during the Harlem Renaissance era. She often held writers‟ workshops at her home in what city?
Washington, D.C.
Growing up with a white Jewish mother and an African- American father, who wrote Devil in a Blue Dress , A Red Death , White Butterfly , and Black Betty ?
Walter Mosley
Elizabeth Catlett Mora is a graphic artist and printmaker. For what other type of work is she best known?
Sculpture
Who was the first Black American woman chosen as Miss America?
Vanessa Williams
In addition to her outstanding career as a singer, what was Marian Anderson appointed to by President Dwight D. Eisenhower?
US Delegate to the United States
Kunta Kinte was one the characters in what Alex Haley book?
Roots
What music is regarded by many as a form of street poetry?
Rap
Gustavus Vassa was a slave who had written the first autobiography. His African name was Olaudah Equiano. How many volumes made up his narrative?
Two
Harlem Renaissance writer Eric Walrond was born in Georgetown, British Guiana and penned what book that consists of a collection of ten stories?
Tropic Death
In 1993, she became the first black to be honored with the Nobel Prize for Literature for six novels. She is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved which became a motion picture, and in 1993 for Jazz . Name her.
Toni Morrison
Born in Hopkinsville, KY, what pianist and arranger formed his own jazz band and recorded the albums Your Daddy's Dogin' Around and Blues for the Red Boy?
Todd Washington Rhodes
Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis has been a prominent figure in jazz since the 1980s. He is the spokesperson for what group, representing a younger generation of jazz musicians?
The Young Lions
This first Gloria Naylor novel consisted of tales from seven black women who wound up on a dead-end street in a ghetto in the North. It was made into a television movie. What is the name of the novel?
The Women of Brewster Place
Ralph Ellison turned to writing after his career in what field was not successful?
Music
What New York library houses rare collections of Black culture?
The Schomburg Center
What medium did Gordon Parks use to describe Black Americans deprivation and racial discrimination?
Photography
What city is known as the “jazz capital of the Southwest?”
Kansas City, Missouri
What Broadway show became the longest running one-person show in the history of Broadway?
The Lady and Her Music
For what work did August Wilson win two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama?
The Pittsburgh Cycle
Currently the pastor of a large congregation in Raleigh, North Carolina, this well-known female singer worked with the gospel group The Caravans established by Albertina Walker. Name her.
Shirley Caesar
Langston Hughes was responsible for publishing what Black American magazine?
The Nation
George Shirley was a tenor and member of what opera company?
the Metropolitan Opera
What is the name of the colorful fabric worn by African royalty?
Kenta Cloth
What type of folk art was seen on the New York subway cars in the 1970s that was a phenomenon among the urban youth?
Graffiti
What is the name of the sculpture designed as a tribute to the four Black girls killed during a church bombing in Alabama in 1963?
The Crucifixion
What is the name of the newsletter which was originally edited by W.E.B. Du Bois and published by the NAACP in 1910?
The Crisis
What is the name of the Harlem club where many famous Black American entertainers began their careers?
The Cotton Club
Popularized by the 1923 musical Runnin' Wild , what 1920s dance is believed to have started in a coastal city of South Carolina?
the Charleston
What musical genre emerged from three heavily populated black isolated areas: the Mississippi Delta, the Piedmont, and East Texas?
The blues
The “father of gospel music” was Thomas A. Dorsey. He composed how many songs?
over 1000
Vibraphone player Lionel Hampton started his career in 1936 with which band?
the Benny Goodman Quartet
Ernest J. Gaines is a short story writer who wrote a 1971historical novel turned television movie whose main character was a 110 year-old woman who narrated her personal
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
Formerly the Virginia Theatre, what became the first Broadway theater to bear the name of an African American in 2005?
the August Wilson Theatre
What author promoted her first novel, Mama , by contacting colleges and universities?
Terry McMillan
Scott Joplin played his ragtime music on what instrument?
Piano
What is the name of the Grammy award winning gospel a cappella sextet whose hits include Spread Love and David & Goliath ?
Take 6
Known for his social and political views, who published The Souls of Black Folks in 1903?
W.E.B. Du Bois
What Harlem theatre is a showcase for Black talent?
The Apollo