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February 2005
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ILLUSTRATIONS BY RON CODDINGTON/KRT
What’s your B.H
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By Eli Sanders
knight ridder ne wspapers
Black History Month began with historian Carter G.
Woodson, who early in the last century came up with
the idea for a "Negro History Week," which he envi
sioned as a celebration of black history and achieve
ment, as well as a time for education.
In 1926, with the support of the Association for the
Study of Negro Life and History, the first "Negro
History Week" was held during the second week in
February. The timing was meant to honor the birth
days of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and President
Lincoln. Over the years, the event grew in popularity,
and in the early 1970s, the association (which later
changed its name, replacing the word "Negro" with
"Afro-American") expanded the celebration and
renamed it "Black History Month."
Now, in keeping with Woodson's idea of focusing
on black history and education, we offer this Black
History Month quiz:
(Black history intelligence quotient)
True or false:
10 .When the United States’ founding fathers wrote "all men are created equal,’’ they meant black people, too.
11 . In the "Tuskegee Experiment,” the United States monitored 399 black men with syphilis for 40 years to
see what would happen to them — even though the men were never told they had syphilis and a cure for the
disease was discovered decades before the experiment ended.
12 . The holiday Kwanzaa was created by black activist and scholar Maulana Karenga in 1966.
13 . Participants in the Harlem Renaissance included Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and
Claude McKay
14 . The historically black college Howard University is located in Atlanta.
■ ■ i f t-/ 11' \
15. Match the following black Americans with their ideas:
1
. The founder of the Nation of Islam was;
a) Elijah Muhammad.
b) Elijah Wood.
c) Ralph Ellison.
2. Thurgood Marshall was:
a) A prominent black thinker and architect of the Marshall Plan,
b) The first black Supreme Court justice.
c) A Harlem Renaissance writer
3. Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige played with which famous
band leader;
a) Benny Goodman.
b) Duke Ellington,
c) Louis Armstrong,
4. Which amendment to the Constitution guaranteed black people
(and all citizens) equal protection under the law?
a) The 15th,
b) The 26th,
c) The 14th,
5. Black people, women and people ages 18 to 21 have all been kept
from voting at some point In the history of tiie United States. In what
order were these groups given the right to vote?
a) Black men, then women, then people 18 to 21.
b) People 18 to 21, then black men, then women.
c) Women, then black men, then people 18 to 21.
6. What landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision struck down the Idea
of “separate but equal" schools for black people and whites?
a) Plessy v Ferguson.
b) Brown v The Board of Education of Topeka, Kan.
c) University of California v. Bakke.
7. The incarceration rates for black people In America have long been
decried as a reflection of a biased justice system. At the end of 2000,
what percentage of all black males In the United States ages 25 to 29
was In prison? (For comparison, the answer Is 2.9 percent for all
Hispanic males in that age group, and 1.1 percent for all white males.)
a) 5.6 percent,
b) 9,7 percent.
c) 24.3 percent.
8. The holkJay Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when:
a) Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation,
thus freeing slaves,
b) Word reached Texas that Lincoln had signed the Emancipation
Proclamation,
c) Lincoln declared war with the South over the Issue of slavery,
9. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the first secretary-general from
sub-Saharan Africa, Is from what country:
a) Ghana,
b) South Africa,
c) Nigeria,
A. “It is not integration that Negroes in America want, it is human dignity,"
B. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed; ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are cre
ated equal.’”
C. Encouraged black people to pick themselves up by their “bootstraps” and
said; “In all things that are purely social, we can be as separate as the fingers, yet
one as the hand in ail things essential to mutual progress.”
D. Wanted to start a colony of black Americans in Llt)erla and said; 'There shall
be no solution to this race problem until you yourselves strike the blow for liberty.”
E. Wrote "The Souls of Black Folk” and said of Booker T. Washington; "(When)
Mr Washington apologizes for injustice, does not rightly value the privilege and
duty of voting, belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions, and opposes
the higher training and ambitions of our brighter minds ... we must unceasingly and
firmly oppose (him)."
F. Read the poem, “On the Pulse of Morning" at President Clinton’s Inauguration;
“You, created only a little lower than/The angels, have crouched too long In/The
bruising darkness/Have lain too long/Face down In ignorance.A'our mouths spilling
words/Armed for slaughter/And the Rock cries out to us today, you/may stand
upon me/But do not hide your face."
G. Wrote the poem, "Harlem,” a passage from which reads: "What happens to a
dream deferred?/Does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?/Or fester like a sore —
/And then run? ... Maybe It just sags/like a heavy load./Or does it explode?"
H. “I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature
somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt
about it. Even In the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, 1 have seen that the
world Is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not
weep at the world — I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife,”
Martin Luther King Jr
W,E,B, Du Bois
Malcolm X
Booker T, Washington
Maya Angelou
Zora Neale Hurston
Langston Hughes
Marcus Garvey
c
1, Jesse Owens: Olympic athlete
2, Harriet Beecher Stowe; Author
of
"Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
3, Joe Louis; Athlete
4, Hiram R. Revels; Rrst black
U.S. senator
5, Abraham Lincoln; President
when slaves were freed
6, Marcus Garvey; Back to Africa
movement leader
7, John Brown; Abolitionist
8, Harriet Tubman; Abolitionist
9, Booker T Washington: Educator
10, Duke Ellington; Musician
11, Granville T, Woods: inventor
12, Henry Highland Gamet.
Abolitionist
13, Frederick Douglass;
Abolitionist
14, Martin Luther King; Civil
rights leader
15, Thurgood Marshall: Supreme
Court justice
16, Sojourner Truth: Abolitionist
17, Elijah J. McCoy: Inventor;
‘The Real McCoy”
18, Rosa Parks; CMI rights leader
19, Marian Anderson: Singer
20, Barbara Jordan: Politician
ANSWERS: 1. A; 2. B; 3. C; 4. C; 5. A;
6. B: 7. B: 8. B: 9. A.
10. False. When this country was found -
ed, tilacks were not considered equal. In
fact the government counted each
black as only three-fifths of a person.
11. True. Yeats after the experiment,
modest cash payments were given to
survivors and their families. And in 1997,
President Clinton issued a formal apob -
gy, saying the experiment was “racist"
and “profoundly moraliy wrong."
12. True. Karenga wanted to “give a
black alternative to the existing holiday"
At the center of Kwanzaa are its seven
principles, which are represented by
seven candles: umoja (unity), kujichagu -
lla (self-determination), ujima (collective
work and responsibility), ujaama (coop -
erative economics), nia (purpose), ku -
umba (creativity) and imani (faith).
13. Tnie.
14. False, i-loward University Is located
In Washington, D.C.
15. A. h/lalcolm X.
B. Martin Luther King Jr
C. Booker T Washington.
D. ti/larcus Garvey
£ WEB DuBols.
F. IVIaya Angelou.
G. Langston Hughes.
H. Zora Neale i-iurston.