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2) At the 2014 Sochi
Olympics, Lauryn Williams became only the second
American and fifth person in
history to achieve what distinction?
3) In 1930, already an
international star, Paul Robeson played the title
character in this play,
which he termed “a tragedy of racial conflict”.
Robeson’s historic
performance, praised for its “dignity and stately
magnificence”, was rewarded
with twenty curtain calls on opening night.
4) A marker on the
Mississippi Blues Trail commemorates the moment this
“King of the Blues”
encountered a man playing slide guitar while
waiting for a train. As a
musician and composer, he brought the blues from
the Delta to global
prominence.
5) Her 2000 New York Times
obituary stated that she “illuminated the
black experience in America
in poems that spanned most of the 20th
century.” She won the
Pulitzer in 1950 for her second book of poems,
Annie Allen, becoming the
first African American to win the prize.
6) This prominent
abolitionist published The North Star, whose motto was
“Right is of no sex – Truth
is of no color – God is the Father of us
all, and all we are
brethren.”
7) These two San Francisco
Giants greats, who share a name, played together
from 1958 to 1971. With
almost as many career home runs as Ruth-Gehrig,
they constituted one of the
most powerful batting duos in baseball history.
8) A woman of many talents,
Maya Angelou was among the first partners of
this dancer, who founded his
American Dance Theater in 1958. At his 1989
funeral, Angelou read a poem
dedicated to him, concluding, “And Lord,
give him all the pliés he
needs until eternity.”
9) Name the Supreme Court
case that effectively ended legalized public
school segregation in the
United States and, within three years, provide
the date of the unanimous
ruling. (BONUS – The landmark decision
overturned what infamous
precedent established by the 1896 case Plessy v.
Ferguson?)
10) During the decade
spanning 1957 to 1967, this jazz great had a colossal
creative output, producing
classic albums including Giant Steps, My
Favorite Things and A Love
Supreme. With a style characterized as
“sheets of sound”, he ranks
among the best jazz saxophonists ever.
Praising the subject’s rise
from humble roots, Nat Hentoff cited his
willingness “to practice
more, to do all the things that somebody has to
do to excel.”
11) This American artist is
credited with reviving the art of the cut-paper
silhouette in the 1990s,
using the medium to probe issues of race, gender
and power.
12) The 1936 Summer Olympics
witnessed a remarkable feat of sportsmanship,
when the German long jump
champion and Olympic recordholder (Luz Long)
provided advice to this
rival, who was in danger of fouling-out of the
competition. The rival
remained in contention and emerged victorious, with
Long being the first to
offer congratulations.
13) Occurring near the start
of summer, this annual celebration
commemorates General Orders,
Number 3 (1865), which freed slaves in Texas.
From there, the tradition
spread throughout the South and remainder of the
country.
14) Her Danse Sauvage made
her an international star, as did her
performance in Zouzou, the
first Hollywood leading role for an African
American woman. During
World War II, she provided the French Resistance
with intelligence overheard
at performances. Addressing the March on
Washington, she decried
racism in her native land with the declaration,
“I have walked into the
palaces of kings and queens…But I could not
walk into a hotel in America
and get a cup of coffee…”.
15) In 1959, Berry Gordy
took an $800 loan from his family to found this
company, whose headquarters
displayed a sign that read “Hitsville
U.S.A.”. Over the next
decade, it produced a staggering procession of
music, with worldwide hits
by the likes of Diana Ross & the Supremes,
Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye
and Smokey Robinson.
16) This African American
artist worked in a variety of media but, in a
1988 obituary, was described
as “the nation’s foremost collagist”.
The subject is especially
associated with Harlem, where he spent much of
his life, and depictions of
the area’s rich culture. He was a principal
founding member of Spiral,
an artists’ collective dedicated to the civil
rights movement.
17) Born Eunice Waymon, she
achieved global fame under this stage name.
Acclaimed as one of the most
talented vocalists of her generation, she was
an active campaigner for
social justice, with her music a significant
backdrop to the civil rights
movement. Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall
of Fame in 2018, her profile
includes, “Her triumphant voice sang what it
meant to be young, gifted
and black in a sometimes unjust and troubled
world.”
18) Born in Crockett, Texas,
in 1935, Myrtis Dightman is considered the
Jackie Robinson of this
rugged athletic profession. During the 1960s and
1970s, he reached the US
national finals seven times.
19) This actor originated
the role of Troy Maxson in the 1987 debut of
August Wilson’s Fences,
winning the Tony Award for Best Actor. With a
distinguished career in both
theater and film, he is perhaps most famous
for providing his resonant
voice to an iconic screen character.
20) With his famous
orchestra, this jazz legend toured the world for almost
half a century until his
death in 1974. He is universally regarded as one
of the all-time great jazz
composers, with hundreds of songs to his name,
including “Sophisticated
Lady, “In A Sentimental Mood” and ”Don’t
Get Around Much Any More”.
As his biography at the Songwriters Hall of
Fame notes, “His
influence…simply cannot be overstated.”
21) He was the first African
American staff photographer at Life. Over the
next two decades, his work
chronicled social ills – notably poverty and
racism – and provided
support for the civil rights movement.
22) Born a slave, this
American abolitionist dropped her birth name in
1843, when she embarked on a
career as one of the most noted evangelists of
her era. A fervent advocate
for equal rights for women, she is especially
remembered for an 1851
speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention, with
its famous refrain “And
ain’t I a woman?”
23) This author’s first
novel gained the 1953 National Book Award, the
first won by an African
American. In his acceptance speech, he spoke of
his “dream of a
prose…confronting the inequalities and brutalities of
our society forthrightly,
but yet thrusting forth its images of hope, human
fraternity, and individual
self-realization.”
24) Eddie Murphy praised
this fellow comedian as “better than anyone who
ever picked up a
microphone”, a view confirmed by the subject topping
Rolling Stone’s “50 Best
Stand-Up Comics of All Time”. Regarding the
subject’s mid-career
transition, another famous comedian observed,
“[he] killed the Bill Cosby
in his act…it was the most astonishing
metamorphosis I have ever
seen. He was magnificent.”
25) In April 1939, denied a
venue due to segregation, this renowned singer
performed at the Lincoln
Memorial instead. Harold Ickes introduced her to
the crowd of 75,000 with the
words “Genius, like justice, is blind.”
Among many other
distinctions, the subject was the first African American
to perform at the
Metropolitan Opera and received the Presidential Medal of
Freedom in 1963.
26) Eulogizing this friend
in 1988, Keith Haring wrote, “Anyone who lived
in downtown Manhattan at
this time [1979] was aware of the presence of
Samo©. The simple sentences
sprayed onto buildings, bridges and crumbling
walls appeared to be the
utterance of some newborn philosopher.”
27) This noted sociologist
addressed the challenges of the turbulent
post-Civil War era in his
1935 book, Black Reconstruction in America. He
characterized the quest for
“absolute equality” as “the last great
battle of the West”.
28) At the 1992 US Open,
twenty-four years after he won the event as an
amateur on military leave,
tennis royalty convened in support of this
man’s Foundation for the
Defeat of Aids. In addition to historic
championships and five Davis
Cup wins, the subject is remembered for his
social activism, including
outspoken opposition to apartheid. His
International Tennis Hall of
Fame bio refers to him as “the sport’s
most elegant and thoughtful
ambassador.”
And a closing thought…
Freedom is the continuous
action we all must take, and each generation
must do its part to create
an even more fair, more just society.
John Lewis, 2017
Answers to The Black History Month Quiz
1.John Lewis
2.Winning a medal at both
the Summer and Winter Olympics
3.Othello
4.W.C. Handy
5.Gwendolyn Brooks
6.Frederick Douglass
7.Willie Mays and Willie
McCovey
8.Alvin Ailey
9.Brown v. Board of
Education / May17, 1954 (“Separate but equal”)
10.John Coltrane
11.Kara Walker
12.Jesse Owens
13.Juneteenth
14.Josephine Baker
15.Motown Records
16.Romare Bearden
17.Nina Simone
18.Rodeo, specifically bull
riding
19.James Earl Jones
20.Duke Ellington
21.Gordon Parks
22.Sojourner Truth
23.Ralph Ellison (for
Invisible Man)
24.Richard Pryor
25.Marian Anderson
26.Jean-Michel Basquiat
27.W.E.B. Du Bois
28.Arthur Ashe
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