Black History Month (week 2)

Althea Gibson was born in 1927. She was the first Black woman to compete in tennis tournaments that had previously been for White players only. She won five grand slam titles in tennis.

Besides tennis, she also competed professionally in which sport?

• Golf

• Basketball

• Track and Field

• Badminton

Frederick Douglass was born in 1818. He was born into slavery, but escaped and went on to be a great writer, statesman, and abolitionist. (An abolitionist is a person who works to end slavery.)

He published books in 1845, 1855, and 1881 that can best be described as:

• Fictional novels

• Autobiographies

• Poetry collections

• Recipe books

Mae Jemison was born in 1956. She is an engineer, doctor, and NASA astronaut. She was the first Black woman to travel to space.

She served as the mission specialist for which Space Shuttle?

• Space Shuttle Enterprise

• Space Shuttle Atlantis

• Space Shuttle Endeavour

• Space Shuttle Discovery

Misty Copeland was born in 1982. She was the first Black ballet dancer to be a principal dancer for the American Ballet Theatre.

She wrote a children’s book in 2014 entitled:

• Firebird

• Fire in My Soul

• Toe Shoes

• Head to Toe Ballerina

Garrett Morgan was born in 1877. Despite being denied education beyond elementary school, he became a successful inventor. His inventions included a traffic signal and a hair-straightening product.

His breathing device invention provided a blueprint for the gas masks used in which major conflict?

• Civil War

• War of 1898

• Boer War

• World War I

Mary Eliza Mahoney was born in in 1845. She was first Black nurse in the US to earn a professional nursing license.

Her parents were freed slaves who had left North Carolina and moved to which city, where she was born?

• New York City

• Providence

• Boston

• Baltimore

Bessie Coleman was born in 1892. Her brothers’ service in World War I inspired her to become the first Black female pilot in the U.S.

Because no aviation schools in the U.S. would accept her, she went to which country to learn to fly airplanes?

• England

• Mexico

• Italy

• France

Alma Woodsey Thomas was born in 1891. She was an Expressionist painter who was known for her large, colorful abstract paintings. 

In 1924, she earned an art degree from:

• Howard University

• Syracuse University

• Boston University

• American University

Katherine Johnson was born in 1918. She was a mathematician who worked for NASA. Her calculations of orbital mechanics contributed to the success of early U.S. crewed spaceflights.

What state was she from?

• Pennsylvania

• Georgia

• Ohio

• West Virginia