Photage of
Notable
Black
Americans
Created by
Sharon Hill
October 13, 2005
1. Purpose:
The purpose of this project is to help students to
understand how much African Americans have
prospered since slavery. As a result of
determination and perseverance, African American
successes were experienced, acquired, and
recorded on the pages of countless history books.
Photage of Notable Black Americans is also
designed to instill a strong sense of self-worth,
self-pride, and/or self-determination for all
students.
Slavery
Determination
+ Perseverance
Freedom
What slave committed murder so
that she and her children would
be free?
Answer: Margaret Garner
What slave found freedom by
folding himself up inside of a box
and mailing himself to the free state
of Virginia?
Answer: Henry Box Brown
What female slave traveled by train
in search of freedom while posing as
a white man with her slave husband
by her side?
Answer: William and Ellen Craft
What slave found freedom by
winning his fight with the judicial
system and was sent back to Africa?
Answer: Joseph Cinque
Creativity
Imagination
+ Need
Inventions
What African
American invented
the gas burning
furnace?
Answer: Alice Parker
What African
American invented
the Traffic Signal
and the gas mask?
Answer: Garrett A. Morgan
What African
American invented
the fountain pen?
Answer: W. B. Purvis
What African
American invented
the first sculpture?
Answer: Edmonia Lewis
What African
American performed
the first eye surgery?
Answer: Patricia E. Bath
What African
American invented
the stethoscope?
Answer: Imhotep
What African
American invented
the ironing board?
Answer: Sarah Boone
What African
American invented
the galoshes?
Answer: A. L. Rickman
What African
American invented
the player piano?
What African
American invented
the helicopter?
Answer: Joseph Dickerson
Answer: Paul E. Williams
What African
American cowboy is
credited with
originating the rodeo
sport called
“bulldogging”?
What African
American invented
the pressure cooker?
Answer: Bill Pickett
Answer: Maurice W. Lee
What African
American invented
several eatable and
noneatable products
from the sweet
potato and peanut?
What African
American invented
the letter drop
mailbox?
Answer:
George Washington Carver
Answer: Philip Dowling
What African
American invented
the video home
security system?
Answer: Mary Brown
What African
American invented
the toilet?
Answer: Thomas Elkins
What African
American invented a
better design for
refrigeration?
Answer: Thomas Elkins
What African
American invented
and/or patented the
dust pan?
Answer: Lloyd Ray
What African
American invented
the lunch pail?
Answer: James Robinson
What African
American invented
the cabinet bed?
Answer: Sarah E. Goode
What African
American invented
the super soaker?
What African
American invented
the coin changer?
Answer: Lonnie Johnson
Answer: James A. Bauer
What African
American invented
the disposable
syringe?
Answer: H. Bradberry
What African
American invented
the automatic fishing
device?
Answer: George Cook
What African
American invented
the golf tee?
Answer: Henry Blair
What African
American invented
the hand stamp?
Answer: W. B. Purvis
What African
American invented
the baby buggy?
Answer: Rufus J. Weaver
What African
American invented
the roller coaster?
Answer:
Granville T. Woods
What African
American invented
the key chain?
What African
American invented
the electric lamp?
Answer:
Frederick J. Loudin
Answer: Lewis Latimer
What African
American invented
the biscuit cutter?
Answer: A. P. Ashbourne
What African
American invented
the folding bed?
Answer: L. C. Bailey
What African
American invented
the fire extinguisher?
Answer: T. J. Marshall
What African
American invented
the guitar?
Answer: F. Flemings, Jr.
What African
American invented
the library table?
Answer: W. R. Davis, Jr.
What African
American invented
luggage carriers?
Answer: J. W. Butts
What African
American invented
the locomotive smoke
stack?
Answer: L. Bell
What African
American invented
sheet music?
Answer: Frank Johnson
Those who seek knowledge through the pages of a book
inherit careers such as
Scientists
Athletics
Astronauts
Political Figures
Doctors
Lawyers
Educators
Engineers
and a host of others.
What was the name of the first black
owned radio station?
Answer: WERD
What was the name of the first
black woman physician?
Answer: Robecca Lee
What was the name of the first black
Miss America?
Answer: Vanessa Williams
What was the name of the first
black woman to own her own
television station?
Answer: Oprah Winfrey
What was the name of the first black
magazine?
Answer: Mirror of Liberty
What was the name of the first
black newspaper?
Answer: Freedom’s Journal
What was the name of the African
American to graduate from Dental
School?
Answer: Lucy Hobbs
What was the name of the first
black lawyer?
Answer: John S. Rock
What was the name of the African
American who invented the mop?
Answer: Thomas W. Stewart
What was the name of the first
black Winter Olympic gold medal
winner?
Answer: Vanetta Flowers
What civil rights leader and
clergyman organized the Poor
People’s Campaign in Washington,
D.C.?
Answer: Ralph Abernathy
What antislavery newspaper was
founded by Frederick Douglass?
Answer: The North Star
What is the name of the educational
institution that was established by
Booker T. Washington?
Answer:Tuskegee Institute
Who was the first African
American official in the U.S. State
Department?
Answer: Ralph Bunche
Who was the first African
American congress woman from
the South?
Answer: Barbara Jordan
Who advocated “equality for
every man, self defense, and self
help”?
Answer: Malcolm X
Cheyney State, considered the
oldest African American collee in
the United States was founded in
what year?
Answer: 1837
Who founded the Nation of
Islam?
Answer: W. D. Ford
What civil rights group was
organized on Abraham Lincoln’s
birthday in 1909 in New York
City?
Answer: NAACP
The first four-year accredited
college was founded by whom?
Answer: Mary McLeod Bethune
Who were the founders of the
Black Panther Party?
Answer: Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale
Who was the first African
American to preside over a
national political convention?
Answer: John Roy Lunch
James Farmer was executive
director of what organization?
Answer:Congress of Racial Equality
What successful black
businessman worked to
establishindependent colonies in
Africa for freed slaves?
Answer:Paul Cuffe
In 1964, who was named the
director of the United States
Information Agency?
Answer: Carl T. Rowan
Who became the first African
American female lawyer in 1872?
Answer: Charlotte E. Ray
What did Carter G. Woodson
start in 1926?
Answer: Negro Histroy Week
What African American educator
also served as an advisor to five
U.S. presidents?
Answer: Mary McCloud Bethune
Who was the first black soldier to
receive the Congressional Medal
of Honor for his outstanding
bravery?
Answer: William H. Carney
Who was the first African
American to win the Nobel Prize
for Literature?
Answer: Toni Morrison
What landmark Supreme Court
ruling required all railroad
companies to provide equal
accomodations for blacks?
Answer: Mitchell vs. U.S. Interstate Commerce Act
What was the name of the ship that
made the first voyage from the North
American colonies to bring back
slaves from Africa?
Answer: Rainbow
In 1990, who was elected mayor of
Washington, DC., becoming the first
African American woman mayor of a
major U.S. city?
Answer: Sharon Pratt Kelly
Who was the first African American
to appear on the presidential ballot in
all 50 states?
Answer: Lenora Fulani
What was the name of Martin Luther
King Jr’s first church?
Answer: Dexter Avenue Baptist
Church
Who was the first African American
to establish and head a bank?
Answer: Maggie Lena Walker
When Cassius Clay converted to the
Nation of Islam, he changed his name
to what?
Answer: Muhammad Ali
What legislator’s eloquent argument
for President Nixon’s impeachment
drew national praise during the
Watergate hearings?
Answer: Barbara Jordan
What African American Muslim
leader called for a separate African
American nation?
Answer: Elijah Muhammad
What sculptor designed the profile of
president Franklin D. Roosevelt that
appears on the dime?
Answer: Selma Burke
Who wrote The Fire Next Time, a
disturbing version of the destruction
that faced American society if it could
not solve its racial problems?
Answer: James Baldwin
What African American was arrested
and executed in 1800 for organizing a
slave revolt?
Answer: Gabriel Prosser
What African American union
organizer helped open he door for the
U.S. Congress to pass legislation
outlawing job discrimination?
Answer: A. Philip Randolph
In 1829, Walker’s Appeal called for
what?
Answer: Any means necessary to
fight slavery
Who was the first African American
woman to lecture on antislavery
issues?
Answer: Maria W. Stewart
Who won the National Book Award
for Invisible Man becoming the first
African American to receive this
honor?
Answer: Ralph Ellison
What African American
revolutionary led colonial forces
sduring the Boston Massacre in 1770,
becoming “the first to defy, and the
first to die?
Answer: Crispus Attucks
What leading crusader against
lynching founded the first black
women’s suffrage organization?
Answer: Ida B. Wells-Barnett
What were the black soldiers who
primarily fought Native Americans in
the West after the Civil War called?
Answer: Buffalo Soldiers
What famous African American
woman dedicated her life to finding
her lost family which had been
separated by slave owners?
Answer: Clara Brown
What respected educator did Martin
Luther King, Jr., call “my spiritual
advisor”?
Answer: Benjamin E. Mays
Who advanced the idea of nonviolent
protest almost 100 years before
Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Answer: William S. Whipper
Who helped from the American
Moral Reform Society, which helped
blacks acquire farmland and aided
runaway slaves in their escape to
Canada?
Answer: William S. Whipper
Who was the first African American
to receive international recognition as
a poet and novelist?
Answer: Paul Lawrence Dunbar
The Association for the Study of
Negro Life and History was founded
by whom?
Answer: Dr. Carter G. Woodson
Who was elected to Congress in 1944
and became the first congress person
to represent the district of Harlem?
Answer: Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
Who was the first African American
senator in Congress?
Answer: Hiram Revels
Who was the first African American
soldier awarded the Congressional
Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War?
Answer: Milton Olive.
Levi Coffin’s mid-western operation,
which helped slaves toescape, became
known as the Underground
Railroad’s what?
Answer: Grand Central Station
Who turned his home into the first
black school in Boston?
Answer: Prince Hall
Who helped organize the first “Negro
Baptist” church in the American
colonies in Savannah, Georgia?
Answer: Andrew Bryan
Who appointed “Thurgood Marshall
to the U.S. Supreme Court”?
Answer: Lyndon B. Johnson
Who published Freedom’s Journal,
the first African American
newspaper?
Answer: John Russwurm
Who founded the Children’s Defense
Fund?
Answer: Mariam Wrigt Edelman
In what year did all 50 states
recognize Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Day?
Answer: 1993
Who was the first African American
elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives?
Answer: Joseph H. Rainey
Who was the first African American
minister ordained in America?
Answer: Absalom Jones
Who was the first black born in
colonial America at Jamestown,
Virginia?
Answer: William Tucker
Who was the first African Americanto
hold the position of Commissioner of
Social Security?
Answer: Gwendolyn S. King
Who was Chicago’s first African
American mayor?
Answer: Harold Washington
What United Nations diplomat
negotiated historic settlement
between Israel and the surrounding
Arab states?
Answer: Ralph Bunche
What African American said, “The
content of one’s character is the
important thing, not the color of one’s
skin”?
Answer: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Who was the recipient of the first
Springarm Award?
Answer: Ernest Everett Just
What athlete bolstered racial pride in
the early 1900’s by beating the
“Great White Hope”?
Answer: Jack Jackson.
Who was the first African American
to vote in the United States?
Answer: Thomas Peterson
Who led the famous rain on Harper’s
Ferry in October 1859 in an attempt
to free and arm slaves in the area?
Answer: John Brown
Who delivered the famous speech,
“Atlanta Compromise” at the Cotton
Exposition in Atlanta?
Answer: Booker T. Washington
Who founded the Chicago Defender
which became the most influential
and militant black newspaper?
Answer: Robert Abbott
Who performed on Broadway an
acclaimed dramatic interpretation of
the events surrounding the 1992 Los
Angeles riots?
Answer: Anna Deavere Smith
What famous photojournalist also
directed the moveis Shaft, Sounder,
and Cotton Comes to Harlem?
Answer: Gordon Parks
What African American was the first
cultural adviser to the Peace Corps?
Answer: Harry Belafonte
Who was the first African American
member of a presidential cabinet?
Answer: Robert Weaver
Who was the first African American
to be named U. S. Surgeon General?
Answer: Joycelyn Elders
Who earned the nicknames “the little
man’s lawyer” and “Mr. Civil Rights”
for his work on behalf of the poor and
minorities?
Answer: Thurgood Marshall
Who was the first African American
astronaut in space?
Answer: Guion Bluford, Jr.
Who was the first African American
to serve on the Washington D.C.
Board of Education?
Answer: Dr. Mary Church Terrell
What U.S. president appointed
Andrew Young U.S. ambassador to
the United Nations?
Answer: Jimmy Carter
Who were John Horse and John
Caesar?
Answer: Black Indians who lived
with Seminole
Who started the anti-Booker T.
Washington campaign that led to the
“Niagara Movement” and the
NAACP?
Answer: William Trotter
As register of the U.S. Treaswury
Department, whose signature
appeared on every piece of U.S. paper
money printed?
Answer: Blanche K. Bruce
In 1955 what 14 year old boy was
brutally murdered in Mississippi
because he allegedly whistled at a
white woman?
Answer: Emmett Till
Who was the first African American
to win a Nobel Prize in a category
other than peace?
Answer: Sir Arthur Lewis
What was the first black school to
establish undergraduate, graduate,
and professional schools?
Answer: Howard University
Who founded the DuSable Museum
of African American History, located
in Chicago, Illinois?
Answer: Dr. Margaret Burroughs
What was one of Mary (Stagecoach
Mary) Field’s jobs in the Old West?
Answer: Mail Carrier
Who founded an economic program
called “People United to Save
Humanity”?
Answer: Jessee Jackson
Who was named associate press
secretary to President John F.
Kennedy?
Answer: Andrew Hatcher
Who won the Nobel Peace Prize in
1984?
Answer: Bishop Desmond Tutu
Who was refused admission to the
University of Mississippi in 1961,
forcing U.S. marshals to escort him to
class?
Answer: James Meredith
What African American lawyer
battled segregation in the military
and the racist poll tax in the South?
Answer: William H. Hastie
Who was the first accredited African
American physician in the United
States?
Answer: James Derham
Who founded this nations’s first
major African American nationalist
movement?
Answer: Marcus Garvey