Black Leaders and Reformers Quiz
Which landmark Supreme Court case represented an important victory for the civil rights movement in 1954?
- The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that legal segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, thus overturning Plessy vs. Ferguson. Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) resulted in the "separate but equal" policy that underpinned the Jim Crow laws in the South. The majority opinion of the court in the case of Scott vs. Sandford (1857) was that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories. Furthermore, several justices held that a black "whose ancestors were . . . sold as slaves" was not a citizen and therefore had no standing in court. The court's verdict contributed to tensions between the North and South leading up to the Civil War.
Noted African–American intellectual and civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois was a founding member of which organization in 1909?
- DuBois was the only black founding member; he edited the NAACP�s magazine, the Crisis. Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute (1881), organized the National Negro Business League in 1900. The SCLC was organized by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1957.
The 15th Amendment, which granted African Americans the right to vote, was passed on which date?
Which of the following propelled Martin Luther King, Jr. to national prominence as a leader of the civil rights movement?
- He achieved a major victory, and the Montgomery buses began to operate on a desegregated basis in 1956. King did organize the March and give his immortal speech, but he was already a prominent civil rights leader. More than 250,000 Americans participated in the March on Washington, one of the largest protest events in American history. King was already a prominent leader of civil rights movement when he was awarded the Nobel prize.
What key event in the civil rights movement happened in 1964?
- Considered the most important piece of civil rights legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1875, the bill was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. Marshall was appointed in 1967. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale organized the Black Panther Party, a revolutionary group that advocated violence as a means of self-defense, in 1966.
The National Rainbow Coalition, a political organization uniting various minority groups, was formed in 1986 by which African–American political leader?
- The organization has since been merged with Operation PUSH (founded in 1971) to form the National Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
Which civil rights activist gained notoriety in the late nineteenth century for her scathing editorials denouncing racial injustice?
- Wells was the editor and part owner of the Memphis Free Speech. An illiterate freed slave, Truth traveled widely throughout the North preaching emancipation and women�s rights. A trained anthropologist, Hurston also wrote fiction, including two novels.
On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy ordered the National Guard to ensure the enrollment of two African American students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, at which university?
- Governor George Wallace had physically blocked the students' entrance to the registration building, prompting Kennedy to take action the same day.
Who is generally considered the mother of the civil rights movement?
- Her refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger triggered the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott. An escaped slave, Tubman became a successful "conductor" on the Underground Railroad. Anthony is generally considered the mother of the women�s rights movement.
Which former slave and noted abolitionist edited and published The North Star, an abolitionist newspaper?
- Douglass also published his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845. Wheatley, who lived from 1753?–1784, was a poet and is generally considered the first important African–American writer in the United States. A largely self–taught surveyor, mathematician, and astronomer, Banneker published an almanac from 1791 to 1802 with tables showing the tides and astronomical events. He is generally considered the first African–American scientist.
