40 Black Trivia Questions and Answers (Black History & Culture)

Looking for Black trivia questions for game night, a family reunion, a classroom or Black History Month? Here are 40 Black history and Black culture trivia questions with answers, grouped by category. Read them out loud, keep score, and see who really knows the culture.

Quick rules for a trivia night: split into two teams, give each team 10 seconds per question, and award 1 point per correct answer. Want a timer that keeps everybody on edge? That's exactly how CP Time works (more on that at the end).

Black History Trivia Questions

1. Who founded Negro History Week in 1926, the event that grew into Black History Month?
   Answer: Carter G. Woodson.
2. In what year did the Montgomery Bus Boycott begin?
   Answer: 1955.
3. Nine months before Rosa Parks, which 15-year-old refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus?
   Answer: Claudette Colvin.
4. Which abolitionist led enslaved people to freedom on the Underground Railroad and was nicknamed "Moses"?
   Answer: Harriet Tubman.
5. Who delivered the famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech in 1851?
   Answer: Sojourner Truth.
6. What does Juneteenth commemorate?
   Answer: June 19, 1865, when news of emancipation reached enslaved people in Galveston, Texas.
7. In what year did Juneteenth become a federal holiday?
   Answer: 2021.
8. What was the name of the Tulsa, Oklahoma district known as "Black Wall Street" that was destroyed in 1921?
   Answer: Greenwood.
9. Which civil rights organization was founded in 1909?
   Answer: The NAACP.
10. Where did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. give his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963?
    Answer: The March on Washington, at the Lincoln Memorial.
11. In which city was the Black Panther Party founded in 1966?
    Answer: Oakland, California.
12. Which HBCU, founded in 1837, is considered the oldest?
    Answer: Cheyney University of Pennsylvania.

Black Firsts Trivia

13. Who was the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress?
    Answer: Shirley Chisholm (1968).
14. Who was the first Black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court?
    Answer: Thurgood Marshall.
15. Who was the first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize?
    Answer: Ralph Bunche (1950).
16. Who broke Major League Baseball's color line in 1947?
    Answer: Jackie Robinson, with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
17. Who was the first Black woman to travel to space?
    Answer: Mae Jemison (1992).
18. Who was the first African American to win an Academy Award?
    Answer: Hattie McDaniel, for Gone with the Wind.
19. Who was the first Black woman to win the Oscar for Best Actress?
    Answer: Halle Berry, for Monster's Ball.
20. Who was the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry?
    Answer: Gwendolyn Brooks (1950).
21. Who became the first Black President of the United States in 2009?
    Answer: Barack Obama.
22. Which entrepreneur built a hair care empire and is often called America's first self-made female millionaire?
    Answer: Madam C.J. Walker.

Black Culture Trivia Questions

23. Which song is known as the Black National Anthem?
    Answer: "Lift Every Voice and Sing."
24. Which TV dance show did Don Cornelius create and host?
    Answer: Soul Train.
25. Who is known as the "Queen of Soul"?
    Answer: Aretha Franklin.
26. Who founded Motown Records in Detroit?
    Answer: Berry Gordy.
27. Which holiday, created in 1966, is celebrated from December 26 to January 1?
    Answer: Kwanzaa.
28. How many principles (the Nguzo Saba) does Kwanzaa celebrate?
    Answer: Seven.
29. Which tennis star won 23 Grand Slam singles titles?
    Answer: Serena Williams.
30. At which Olympics did Jesse Owens win four gold medals?
    Answer: The 1936 Berlin Olympics.
31. What does "CP Time" stand for?
    Answer: Colored People's Time, the running joke about showing up late.

Black Literature & Science Trivia

32. Who wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?
    Answer: Maya Angelou.
33. Which Harlem Renaissance poet wrote "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"?
    Answer: Langston Hughes.
34. Who wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God?
    Answer: Zora Neale Hurston.
35. Which author of Beloved won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993?
    Answer: Toni Morrison.
36. Name the three NASA mathematicians featured in Hidden Figures.
    Answer: Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson.
37. Which inventor patented a three-position traffic signal in 1923?
    Answer: Garrett Morgan.
38. Which scientist is famous for developing hundreds of uses for the peanut?
    Answer: George Washington Carver.
39. Which talk show host became one of the first Black women billionaires?
    Answer: Oprah Winfrey.
40. Which 2018 Marvel film, directed by Ryan Coogler, is set in the nation of Wakanda?
    Answer: Black Panther.

Turn These Questions Into a Real Game Night

Reading questions off your phone is fun for a round or two. If you want the full experience, CP Time is a Black culture trivia party game with hundreds of questions across multiple categories. Every question needs three answers before the CP Timer goes off, and the timer can buzz at any moment between 3 and 10 seconds, so nobody is ever comfortable. A free companion app (iOS and Android) adds a dramatic countdown, digital scorekeeping, and Solo and Team Play modes.

Movie buffs should grab Role Call: Blackbuster Edition, a Black movie trivia game, and the artists in your crew will love Culture Canvas, the drawing party game inspired by the African American experience. See the full lineup of Black card games and trivia games.

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