1. True or False?
• A Black man served as a crew member on Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the New World in 1492.
• Onesimus, an enslaved man in the house of Cotton Mather, first introduced to North America the idea of inoculating people to prevent serious diseases.
• When George Washington acquires the Mt. Vernon property 200 enslaved African Americans work there. Under his ownership that number decreases to 18.
• In 1750 one in every five residents of the colonies was enslaved.
• The first state to abolish slavery was New York.
2. Match the person to his/her profession.
a. Phyllis Wheatley
b. Benjamin Banneker
c. James Derham
d. James P. Beckwourth
e. Richard Allen
f. James Forten
g. Charles Bennett Ray
h. Emmanuel Bernoon
i. John Jones
j. Ira Frederick Aldridge
1. Bishop
2. Journalist/Editor
3. Actor
4. Explorer/Fur trader
5. County Commissioner
6. Inventor/Businessman
7. Poet
8. Doctor
9. Caterer/Restaurant owner
10. Astronomer/Mathematician
3. In 1889 the first woman was elected secretary of the Afro American Press Association. She was:
A.Mary Church Terrell
B. Lillian Evans
C. Ida B.Wells-Barnett
D. Anna Julia Cooper
4. The abolitionist writer Frederick Douglass said: "I thank God for making me a man simply; but (this man) always thanks Him for making him a Black man." Who was he talking about?
A. Thomas L. Jenning.
B. Martin Robinson Delaney
C. Richard Allen.
5. Which Western state was the only one that did not have laws against interracial marriage?
A. Oregon
B. Idaho
C. Washington
D. California
6. Who's Who?
Match the photos of these current legislators with their descriptions.
A. Eddie Bernice Johnson (b.1935) is a U.S. Representative for the 30th District in Texas. Born in Waco, Texas, she is a qualified psychiatric nurse and psychotherapist. A Democrat, she first was elected to office in 1972 as a state representative, then to the Texas state Senate in 1986. She was subsequently elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992.
As the 17th chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, she was a leading voice in opposition to the Authorization For the Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. During debate on the House floor, she stated, "While I believe that under international law and under the authority of our Constitution, the United States must maintain the option to act in its own self-defense, I strongly believe that the administration has not provided evidence of an imminent threat of attack on the United States that would justify a unilateral strike."
She also was one of 31 legislators who voted in the House against counting the electoral votes from Ohio in the United States presidential election, 2004.
B. Gwen Moore (b.1951), a Democrat from Milwaukie, Wis., has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2004. Before that the former city development specialist served in the Wisconsin Assembly and the Wisconsin Senate. In Congress Moore serves on the Small Business Com-mittee and the Financial Services Committee. A welfare mother at age 18, she went on to graduate in political science from Marquette University, later earning a certificate for senior executives in state and local government from Harvard.
Moore was one of nine members of the Congressional Black Caucus who, in 2006, were arrested and ticketed for unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct after protesting outside the Sudanese Embassy to draw attention to the genocide in Darfur.
C. Eleanor Holmes Norton (b.1937) is a Democratic Delegate to Congress representing the District of Columbia. Delegates can vote with committees, and speak from the House floor, but they cannot vote on final passage of legislation. She was elected in 1990.
A graduate of Yale Law School, Norton worked as a lawyer in private practice, clerked for Federal District Court Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., served as an assistant legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and as executive assistant to the Mayor of New York.
Norton, like Rep. Gwen Moore, was one of nine members of the Congre-ssional Black Caucus who, in 2006, were arrested and ticketed for unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct after protesting outside the Sudanese Embassy to draw attention to the genocide in Darfur.
D. Maxine Waters (b.1938) A Democrat from Los Angeles, Waters spent 14 years in the California State Assembly before being elected to the U.S. Congress. In California she was responsible for legislation that took state pension investment funding out of South Africa, enacted affirmative action policies and barred police strip searches for nonviolent misdemeanors.
Waters has served on the Democratic National Com-mittee since 1980, and recently announced her support of Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Following the Los Angeles civil unrest in 1992, she founded Com-munity Build, the city's grassroots rebuilding project. She also is Chair of the 'Out of Iraq' Congressional Caucus, established to debate the war in Iraq and to urge the return of U.S. service members to their families as soon as possible. Waters serves on the House Banking and Judiciary committees. She co-sponsored a resolution to impeach Dick Cheney.
Black History Quiz Answers
One.
True. Pedro Alonzo Niño was Black. Sailors of African ancestry served on all the major Spanish expeditions to the Americas.
True. Onesimus told Mather about medical inoculations performed by tribal healers in Africa. Mather told one Dr. Boylston who then inoculated his son and two enslaved Africans with smallpox. All recovered within a week.
False, the opposite is true. Under Washington, Mt. Vernon's slave population increased from 18 to 200.
True. The slave population was 236,400 and of them 206,000 lived in the South.
False. Vermont in 1777 forbid slavery in its state constitution.
Two.
a. 7. Phillis Wheatley (1753 – 1784) was born in Africa, enslaved as a child and transported to Boston. She was the first published African American poet and achieved success in Britain and America.
b. 10. Benjamin Banneker (1731 –1806) was a mathematician, astronomer, clockmaker, and publisher. Born to free parents in Maryland, Banneker was a gifted scientist who taught himself clock making and astronomy.
c. 8. James Derham. Born into slavery in 1757, he was the first African American to practice medicine, learning from several doctors who "owned" him. He bought his freedom by working as a nurse. He practiced in Philadelphia and was an expert in throat diseases.
d. 4. James P. Beckwourth (1798 – 1866). Born in Virginia to a White father and Black mother, he became a fur trapper, explorer and a legendary figure in the Wild West. He lived with Crow Indians for some years.
e. 1. Rev. Richard Allen (1760 —1831) founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church and became a bishop. Born a slave of a Quaker lawyer in Pennsylvania, he operated a station on the Underground Railway helping escaping slaves.
f. 6. James Forten 1766-1842. Born free in Philadelphia, he attended a Quaker school then apprenticed as a sailmaker. He invented a sail handling device and became one of the wealthiest African Americans of his times. An Abolitionist, he argues against repatriating freed slaves to Africa.
g. 2. Charles Bennett Ray (b.1807) became editor and owner of the Colored American, an African American newspaper, published in New York from 1836- 1841 and distributed along the East coast.
h. 9. Emmanuel Bernoon with his wife Mary, opened an Oyster restaurant in Providence Rhode Island in 1736.
i. 5. John Jones (1817—1879). Born a free man in North Carolina he taught himself to read and write. A tailor, he started his own business and became one of the wealthiest men in the country. He was a civil rights activist and abolitionist who turned his home into an Underground Railway Station. Jones was the first African American elected to senior office in America as Cook County Commissioner.
j. 3. Ira Frederick Aldridge (1807 – 1867) was a New York actor who made his career on the stage in London. He became a star and is the only African American (among 33 actors) recognized with a bronze plaque at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon. His many roles included: Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Shylock and King Lear.
Three.
C. Ida B. Wells Barnett (1862- 1931) was a crusading Black journalist who edited newspapers in Mississippi. After the death of her mother she raised her six brothers and sisters as well as editing two newspapers. She fought against lynching and helped found the NAACP.
Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) was a teacher and the first president of the National Association of Colored Women as well as board member of the DC public school system. She fought successfully in the early 1950s to desegregate public eating places in DC.
Lillian Evans (1891-1967) was an acclaimed opera singer who performed as Madame Evanti.
Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964) University Educator and civil rights pioneer. Earned her Ph.D. from the Sorbonne in Paris. Served on the Pan-African Executive Committee.
Four.
B. Delaney, the first Black major in the U.S. Army was also a doctor, writer and Black nationalist. Jenning invented dry-cleaning. Allen founded the African American Episcopal church.
Five.
C. Washington. According to Stefanie Johnson writing for the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, "Interracial couples often traveled long distances from states with anti-miscegenation laws to marry in Washington."
However, before Washington became a state, the Washington Territory did ban interracial marriages. That ban was lifted in 1887.
Laws banning interracial marriage were proposed in 1935 and 1937 but were defeated under opposition from a coalition led by African Americans, Filipinos and labor activists.
In 1948 California's Supreme Court said the state's 1850 ban on interracial marriage was unconstitutional.
Idaho banned interracial marriages in 1854 and repealed the law in 1959.
Oregon banned interracial marriages in 1862, forbidding Whites to marry anyone 1/4 or more Black, then in 1866 extending that law to Chinese, Hawaians and Native Americans. Oregon repealed the law in 1951.
Six.
1C, 2D, 3B, 4A.
