As usual, for my teacher friends to use as needed. In reverse chronological order, beginning with Barack Obama and ending with Phillis Wheatley. The focus is on political leaders, writers, and scientists. Please note that this year I made the list for adult English language learners, so you may need to adapt for children. There is some overlap with past years' lists.
1.
This
Black American was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017.
Answer:
Barack Obama
2.
This
movement was founded in 2013 after a jury found a White man “not guilty” in the
shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Its goal is to end racism in the United
States criminal justice system.
Answer:
Black Lives Matter
3.
This
Black American was the first female African American U.S. Senator. She represented
Illinois in the Senate from 1993 to 1999.
Answer:
Carol Moseley Braun
4.
This
Black American won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. She wrote the novel Beloved.
Answer:
Toni Morrison
5.
This
Black American, known as “The Queen of Soul,” became the first woman in the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. Her most famous songs include Respect and A Natural Woman.
Answer:
Aretha Franklin
6.
This person was the first Black American
astronaut to go into space. He became a NASA astronaut in 1979. He flew four
missions to space and orbited the Earth 458 times.
Answer:
Guion Bluford
7.
In
1969, this Black American became the first African American woman elected to
the United States Congress. She was the first Black candidate for President of
the United States.
Answer:
Shirley Chisolm
8.
This
Black American was the first African American justice on the United States
Supreme Court. He was on the Supreme Court from 1967 to 1991. Before he became
a judge, he was a lawyer who won the case for school desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education.
Answer:
Thurgood Marshall
9.
These
Black mathematicians sent the first American astronauts into space. They were “human
computers” who worked at NASA. They performed the calculations needed to launch
humans into space – and they did them by hand. You can learn more about these
women in the movie Hidden Figures.
Answer:
Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan (VAHN)
10. This Black American was a
leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He was a minister who believed in the
power of non-violence. The FBI called him “The Most Dangerous Man in America.”
His 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech is one of the most famous speeches in U.S.
history.
Answer:
Martin Luther King Jr.
11. This Black American is known as
the “mother of the Civil Rights movement.” In 1955, as a member of the
Montgomery, Alabama NAACP, she chose to be arrested on the city bus in order to
challenge racist bus laws. Her arrest started a year-long boycott of Montgomery
city buses.
Answer:
Rosa Parks
12. This internationally famous Black singer had been denied entrance to
Constitution Hall in Washington DC in 1939, so she performed in front of the Lincoln
Memorial. She sang there again in 1963 during Dr. King’s March on Washington.
Answer: Marian Anderson
13. This Black scientist studied at
Temple University and worked at Bell Labs. He invented the foil electret
microphone in 1962. Ninety percent of microphones today, including in phones,
camcorders, and baby monitors, use his technology.
Answer:
James West
14. This Black athlete broke the
color barrier in baseball in 1947 by playing with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was
an All-Star player for six years in a row. On April 15 every year, every player
on every team in Major League Baseball wears his number, 42.
Answer:
Jackie Robinson
15. This Black writer was a central
figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Her best-known work is the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Answer:
Zora Neale Hurston
16. In 1912, this Black American
invented the first safety hood so that firefighters and rescue workers could
safely go into places filled with smoke and poisonous gases. In 1923 he invented
the first traffic signal with a warning light.
Answer:
Garrett Morgan
17. This Black American was an
inventor who improved travel by train in the 19th century. He
received 57 patents for his inventions. We use his name today when we call the
original and best thing “the real McCoy.”
Answer:
Elijah McCoy
18. In 1887, this Black American
designed an important safety feature for elevators – their automatic doors.
Before his invention, people had to close the elevator door by hand. If they
forgot, they risked falling out of the elevator.
Answer:
Alexander Miles
19. This Black American invented
one of the first washing machines in the 1880’s. Her invention was a
hand-cranked machine that passed wet clothes between two rollers, squeezing out
the water and dirt.
Answer:
Ellen Eglin
20. This
Black American was the principal of the Institute for Colored Youth, now Cheyney
University, the country’s oldest historically Black university. He worked to
desegregate Philadelphia streetcars, once spending the whole night in a
streetcar rather than give up his seat. There is a memorial to him outside Philadelphia
City Hall. He was murdered by a White man in 1871 when he tried to vote.
Answer: Octavius Catto
21. In 1870 and 1875, these Black
leaders became the first African American senators in the United States Senate.
During the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, federal troops briefly
safeguarded the rights of African Americans. Racist state governments revoked
the newly won rights when Reconstruction ended in 1876.
Answer:
Hiram Revels and Blanche Bruce
22. This Black American escaped
from slavery during the Civil War by taking a Confederate ship and sailing it
north. He was a ship’s captain for the Union during the war and a member of
Congress after the war.
Answer: Robert Smalls
23. In 1857, this enslaved Black
American sued for his freedom in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court ruled that
he was the property of his owner and that Black Americans were not citizens of
the United States.
Answer: Dred Scott
24. This Black American escaped
slavery and became an activist for African American and women’s rights. Her
1851 “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention is one of
the most famous speeches in U.S. history.
Answer: Sojourner Truth
25. This Black American was a slave
who escaped to Pennsylvania in 1849. Over the
next ten years she completed 19 secret missions to rescue over 300 people from
slavery. You can visit the house where she sheltered escaped slaves on
Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia.
Answer:
Harriet Tubman
26. This Black American escaped
from slavery in 1838 to become a famous writer, speaker, and newspaper
publisher. After the Civil War he became president of the new Freedman’s
Savings Bank.
Answer:
Frederick Douglass
27. In
1794, this Black minister founded the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church,
the first independent Black church in the United States. The church is located
at the corner of Sixth and Lombard Streets in Philadelphia. It is the oldest
church property in the United States to be continuously owned by African
Americans.
Answer:
Richard Allen
28. This Black American was sold
into slavery in 1761 when she was seven years old. She went on to become an
internationally famous poet and one of the first published poets of colonial
America.
Answer: Phillis Wheatley
