Black History Month Trivia - Notable African-American Women

Before Kamala Harris was elected to the Senate in 2017, who was the only other black woman to serve as U.S. Senator?

• Shirley Chisholm

• Carol Mosley-Braun

• Eleanor Holmes Norton

• Maxine Waters

Answer explanation

Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun, also sometimes Moseley-Braun, is a former U.S. Senator, an American diplomat, politician, and lawyer who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1993 to 1999.

Who served as poet laureate of the United States?

• Gwendolyn Brooks

• Maya Angelou

• Rita Dove

• Sonia Sanchez

Answer explanation

Maya Angelou was an American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years.

Which of these dancers became the director of a major American dance company?

• Judith Jameson

• Kathryn Dunham

• Josephine Baker

• Misty Copeland

Answer explanation

Judith Ann Jamison is an American dancer and choreographer. She is the artistic director emerita of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Which journalist and civil rights leader crusaded against lynching?

• Mary McLeod Bethune

• Myrlie Evers-Williams

• Ethel L. Payne

• Ida B. Wells

Answer explanation

Ida B. Wells was an American investigative journalist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Which opera singer became the first African American to become a permanent member of the Metropolitan Opera Company?

• Jessye Norman

• Rehanna Thelwell

• Leontyne Price

• Marian Anderson

Answer explanation

Marian Anderson was an American contralto. She performed a wide range of music, from opera to spirituals. Anderson performed with renowned orchestras in major concert and recital venues throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965.

Which activists long career involved her deeply in three major civil rights organizations - the NAACP, NCLC and SNCC.

• Ella Baker

• Fannie Lou Hamer

• Angela Davis

• Afeni Shakur

Answer explanation

Fannie Lou Hamer was an American voting and women's rights activist, community organizer, and a leader in the civil rights movement. She was the vice-chair of the Freedom Democratic Party, which she represented at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

Who was the first African-American female Oscar winner?

• Angela Bassett

• Halle Berry

• Hattie McDaniel

• Viola Davis

Answer explanation

Hattie McDaniel was an American actress, singer-songwriter, and comedian. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Gone with the Wind, becoming the first African American to win an Oscar.

Which abolitionist was known for her extraordinary oratorical gifts?

• Harriet Tubman

• Sojourner Truth

• Phyllis Wheatley

• Sarah Parker Redmond

Answer explanation

Sojourner Truth was an American abolitionist of New York Dutch heritage and a women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826.

Which abolitionist had narcolepsy (sleeping spells) during which she is said to have had visions that helped her evade slave catchers?

• Harriet Tubman

• Rosa Parks

• Sojourner Truth

• Fannie Lou Hamer

Answer explanation

Harriet Tubman was one of the most important figures in the American abolitionist movement, and her accomplishments are a tribute to her bravery: She led over 300 slaves to freedom as an Underground Railroad conductor, spied for the union army, and was the only woman to lead an armed expedition in the Civil War.

Which African-American woman won the Nobel Prize in Literature?

• Zora Neale Hurston

• Toni Morrison

• Alice Walker

• Phillis Wheatley

Answer explanation

Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award.