Black History Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. A museum exhibit follows Caribbean people who moved to Britain after World War II, including passengers who arrived aboard the Empire Windrush in 1948. Which term best fits the exhibit?
The Great Migration
The Windrush generation
The Scramble for Africa
The Atlantic Charter generation
2. In 1965, a hotel serving interstate travelers refuses a room to a Black guest solely because of race. Which recently enacted federal law most directly prohibited this discrimination in public accommodations?
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Fair Housing Act of 1968
Title IX of the Education Amendments
The Fifteenth Amendment
3. What historical event does Juneteenth commemorate?
The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteeing voting rights regardless of race
The first day formerly enslaved people voted in a nationwide U.S. election
The Supreme Court’s decision ending racial segregation in public schools
The June 19, 1865 announcement and enforcement of emancipation in Galveston, Texas
4. Which Harlem Renaissance writer authored the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God”?
Augusta Savage
Bessie Smith
Zora Neale Hurston
Jacob Lawrence
5. Which outcome followed the Haitian Revolution?
Saint-Domingue became a self-governing British colony after defeating France.
France ended slavery permanently throughout all of its colonies in 1791.
Haiti became independent in 1804 and emerged as the first independent Black republic.
The revolution created a unified independent nation encompassing every Caribbean island.
6. A student is preparing a presentation about Ghana’s independence from British colonial rule in 1957. Which leader should be a central figure in the presentation?
Jomo Kenyatta
Patrice Lumumba
Julius Nyerere
Kwame Nkrumah
7. Which immediate event triggered the organized Montgomery Bus Boycott in December 1955?
Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Supreme Court ordered the integration of Central High School in Little Rock.
Rosa Parks was arrested after refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger.
James Meredith enrolled at the University of Mississippi under federal protection.
8. When the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, what did it declare?
Enslaved people in states or designated parts of states still rebelling against the Union were declared free.
Slavery was abolished immediately in every U.S. state, including loyal border states.
Every formerly enslaved person was immediately granted U.S. citizenship and voting rights.
The Civil War was officially over and Confederate states had rejoined the Union.
9. Which problem was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 principally designed to confront?
State and local barriers to voting, including literacy tests and discriminatory administration
Racial segregation in public schools maintained by local education boards
Racial discrimination by landlords and home sellers in private housing markets
National immigration quotas based on a person’s country of origin
10. A school district argues that racially separate public schools are constitutional if their facilities appear similar. Which Supreme Court decision rejected that position in public education?
Plessy v. Ferguson
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
Loving v. Virginia
Brown v. Board of Education
11. A historian is researching the Reconstruction amendment that established birthright citizenship and required states to provide equal protection of the laws. Which amendment is central to that research?
The Thirteenth Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment
The Nineteenth Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment
12. In the 1920s, a Black family leaves rural Alabama for Chicago, seeking industrial work and an escape from Jim Crow restrictions. Which historical movement does this illustrate?
The Exoduster movement
The Great Migration
The Second Great Awakening
The Back-to-Africa movement
13. Which description best captures Toussaint Louverture’s historical role?
He was a U.S. abolitionist publisher who founded The Liberator newspaper.
He was a leading military and political figure in the Haitian Revolution in Saint-Domingue.
He led Ghana to independence from British colonial rule.
He was a Harlem Renaissance poet known for “The Weary Blues.”
14. A recording features Martin Luther King Jr. delivering the words “I have a dream” before a vast crowd at the Lincoln Memorial. At which event was the speech delivered?
The Selma to Montgomery march
The March Against Fear
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
The Poor People’s Campaign encampment
15. A late-1960s community flyer advertises free breakfasts for children and local health clinics as part of a broader Black liberation program. Which organization is most closely associated with these “survival programs”?
The Black Panther Party
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
16. Nelson Mandela became internationally known through his struggle against apartheid as a leader of which organization?
South West Africa People’s Organization
African National Congress
Zimbabwe African National Union
Pan Africanist Congress of Azania