50 Black History Month Trivia
How much do you know about black history month celebrated in the US? Try out our black history month trivia questions and answers to find out.
In the United States, February is designated as Black History Month. This annual celebration was first established in 1976 to recognize and honor the contributions of African Americans to U.S. history.
Each year, various organizations and groups sponsor events and educational programs to commemorate Black History Month.
For more this day trivia quiz, see Veterans Day Trivia Questions and Answers 2022, and also winter trivia questions.
Black History Month Trivia Questions and Answers
1. What country did the majority of slaves who were brought to the Americas come from?
Answer: Most slaves who were brought to the Americas came from Africa
2. Who was the first African American to be elected as a U.S. senator?
Answer: Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first African American to be elected as a U.S. senator. He served in the Senate from 1870 to 1871.
3. What was the name of the first African-American woman to be elected to Congress?
Answer: The first African-American woman to be elected to Congress was Shirley Chisholm, who served in the House of Representatives from 1969 to 1983.
4. What was the name of the first ever African American newspaper?
Answer: The Freedom’s Journal was the first African American newspaper. It was founded in 1827 by John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish.
5. Which African American inventor patented the process for making peanut butter?
Answer: George Washington Carver patented the process for making peanut butter in 1895.
6. What year was the annual Black History Month celebration started?
Answer: The annual celebration was first established in 1976.
7. The Black History Month was initially known as what?
Answer: The black history month was initially known as Negro History Week. This was established in 1926.
8. Who was the first African-American Supreme Court justice?
Answer: The first African-American Supreme Court justice was Thurgood Marshall, who served from 1967 until 1991.
9. Who was the first black president of the United States?
Answer: The first black president of the United States was Barack Obama, who served from 2009 to 2017.
10. Who is the founder of Black History Month?
Answer: Dr. Carter G. Woodson is the founder of Black History Month, which was originally Negro History Week.
11. Who refused to give up her seat on the bus that sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
Answer: Rosa Parks – She refused to give up her bus seat to a white person in 1955
12. The Montgomery bus boycott lasted for how many days?
Answer: The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days, from December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956.
13. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech during the 1963 March on Washington for what purpose?
Answer: To address the Jobs inequalities and for Freedom
14. The Voting Rights Act was passed, outlawing discriminatory voting practices that had kept African Americans from voting in what year?
Answer: In 1965
15. Barack Obama was the what president of the United States in 2008, becoming the first African American to hold the office?
Answer: He was the 44th president of the United States
16. What summer holiday commemorates the emancipation of black slaves in the United States?
Answer: Juneteenth
17. Who was the first black woman of color to become a lawyer in Canada?
Answer: The first black female lawyer in Canada was Violet Pauline King Henry in 1954.
18. Who was the first African American lawyer to receive his license before the civil War?
Answer: Macon Bolling Allen
Black History Quiz Questions and Answers
19. Who was the first Black Supreme Court lawyer to argue a case before the Supreme Court in 1865?
Answer: John S. Rock
20. Which city in Maryland was the site of protests to end segregation in public places and of two race riots in the 1960s?
Answer: The city of Baltimore, Maryland
21. Whose proposal that congress consider civil rights legislation culminated in the civil rights act of 1964?
Answer: The proposal that congress consider civil rights legislation was made by President John F. Kennedy.
22. Which state in U.S. would you visit if you wanted to tour the Penn Center, one of the first southern schools for freed slaves?
Answer: The Penn Center is located on Saint Helena Island, South Carolina.
23. The first black African American to become president of the Harvard law review was __?
Answer: Barack Obama in 1991
24. Who was the first black female president of the Harvard law review?
Answer: ImeIme Umana became the 131st president, but first female president of the Harvard law review in 2017
25. The first black female bank president to charter a bank in the United States was __?
Answer: Maggie Lena Walker in 1903
26. Which community established by freed black slaves within New York city’s five boroughs no longer exists?
Answer: Seneca Village which was founded in 1825
27. What New York City neighbourhood was the largest black neighbourhood in the United States during the Great Depression?
Answer: Central Harlem
28. Who was the first black president of an Ivy League university and the first female president of Brown University?
Answer: Dr. Ruth Simmons between 2001 – 2012
29. What was the nickname for the group of all black fighter group in the U.S. army air corps during world war 2?
Answer: The Tuskegee Airmen
30. Frederick Douglass was the social leader of an abolitionist movement. In which state did he became the national leader?
Answer: Massachusetts and New York
31. The Colored Musicians Club is the oldest operating African American club in the United States. In which city is the club located?
Answer: Its located in Buffalo, New York
32. The first African American sculptor to achieve national and then international prominence was an upstate New York native. What was this person?
Answer: Mary Edmonia Lewis, also known as “Wildfire”
33. Who was the first fully trained black concert pianist to play with a European orchestra in 1904?
Answer: Hazel Harrison, an American concert pianist
34. Who was the first African American to win the Nobel peace prize in 1950?
Answer: Ralph Bunche
35. Who is the first licensed African American female pilot?
Answer: Bessie Coleman
36. Who is the first black to be elected to the Pennsylvania general assembly in 2018?
Answer: Malcolm Kenyatta
African American Trivia Questions and Answers
37. What black man is known as the father of ice cream?
Answer: Augustus Jackson
38. What was the name of the young boy killed for accusations of offending a white woman in 1955?
Answer: Emmett Till
39. Which American president officially recognized Black History Month in 1976?
Answer: President Gerald Ford
40. Who was the first African American who played major league baseball?
Answer: Jackie Robinson in 1947 at the age of 28
41. The first African American woman to run for president of the united states under the democratic party in 1972 was __?
Answer: Shirley Chisholm
42. An all white jury in Mississippi acquitted Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam for the murder of who?
Answer: Emmett Till
43. What is the name of the party of Abraham Lincoln who signed the emancipation proclamation, the legislation that outlawed slavery within the united states?
Answer: The Republican Party
44. Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. an American aerospace engineer spent six days in space in 1983. He was a member of which crew mission?
Answer: He was a member of the Space Shuttle Challenger
45. Who was the first ever black woman named to the cabinet of a United States president?
Answer: Patricia R. Harris
46. Who was the first African American woman to graduate from a nursing school in the United States?
Answer: Mary Elizabeth Mahoney in 1879 at the age of 34
47. Who was the first African American woman ever to win five Grammy awards in one year?
Answer: Lauryn Hill
48. Which Pennsylvania native was the first black woman to star in her own TV special?
Answer: A. Ethel Waters
49. Who became the first African American and first woman to represent Delaware in congress when she was elected in 2016?
Answer: Lisa Blunt Rochester
50. Which US Supreme Court ruling declared that segregated public schools were unconstitutional?
Answer: Brown v. Board of Education
