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147 free Black History Month trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
50 free Black History Month trivia questions with answers. Black History Month trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is Black History trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
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Q 01Who was the first African American to earn a Harvard PhD?
W.E.B. Du Bois
W.E.B. Du Bois earned the first Harvard PhD awarded to an African American in 1895, with a dissertation on the suppression of the African slave trade to the United States.
Q 02In what year did "Negro History Week," the precursor to Black History Month, officially begin?
1926
Historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History initiated "Negro History Week" in February 1926.
Q 03Members of the Black German community began observing the month in 1990 in which city?
Berlin
Berlin's Black German community began observing Black History Month in 1990, with programmes covering Black Europeans, US civil rights history and apartheid-era South Africa.
Q 04In the United Kingdom, Black History Month is celebrated in which month?
October
While the United States and Canada observe Black History Month in February, the United Kingdom celebrates it in October.
Q 05February was chosen for Black History Month partly to coincide with which two figures' birthdays?
Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass
February holds Abraham Lincoln's birthday (the 12th) and the one Frederick Douglass chose for himself (the 14th); in 1897 Mary Church Terrell had Washington, D.C. schools observe a 'Douglass Day'.
Q 06In what year did President Gerald Ford recognize Black History Month?
1976
By 1976 the month was already celebrated across the country; Ford's recognition came during the United States Bicentennial.
Q 07In what year did Carter G. Woodson co-found the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History?
1915
Woodson co-founded the Association on September 9, 1915, during the Lincoln Jubilee exposition marking fifty years since emancipation; Negro History Week followed in 1926.
Q 08Students and educators at which university held the first celebration of Black History Month in February 1970?
Kent State University
Black United Students and Black educators at Kent State University proposed Black History Month in February 1969; the first celebration was held on the Kent campus in 1970.
Q 09Who co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History with Carter G. Woodson?
Jesse E. Moorland
Moorland was a Congregational minister whose private library later seeded Howard University's Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.
Q 10In Jamaica, the February observance overlaps which celebration timed to Bob Marley's birthday?
Reggae Month
Reggae Month, declared by Jamaica's government in 2008, fills February because Bob Marley was born on 6 February 1945; Dennis Brown, the 'Crown Prince of Reggae', was born on 1 February.
Q 11Whose motion led Canada's House of Commons to recognize February as Black History Month?
Jean Augustine
Augustine, the first Black woman elected to Canada's Parliament, represented Etobicoke—Lakeshore.
Q 12In what year was Black History Month first celebrated in the United Kingdom?
1987
The British observance arrived six decades after the American one and, unlike it, is not held in February.
Q 13Carter G. Woodson earned his bachelor's degree from which college in 1903?
Berea College
Woodson took his Bachelor of Literature from Berea College in Kentucky in 1903, a year before the state's Day Law barred the college from teaching Black and white students together.
Q 21Black communities in which state, where Woodson often spoke, marked a full Negro History Month as early as the 1940s?
West Virginia
Black West Virginians, in a state where Woodson had taught and often spoke, celebrated February as Negro History Month by the 1940s; Chicago activist Fredrick H. Hammaurabi followed in the mid-1960s.
Q 22Black History Month Ireland, launched in 2010, began in which city?
Cork
Black History Month Ireland was launched in Cork in October 2010; like the UK, Ireland holds the observance in the autumn rather than February.
Q 23In the 1930s Negro History Week countered the 'lost cause' myth, which recast the Civil War as a war of what?
Northern aggression
Q 14Which week of February did the ASNLH originally designate for Negro History Week?
Second
Woodson chose the second week of February so it bracketed Lincoln's birthday on the 12th and Douglass's on the 14th; only three state education departments cooperated in the first year.
Q 15Early in its history, Negro History Week gained crucial support from which kind of publication?
African-American newspapers
African-American newspapers lent crucial support early on, and churches helped distribute the literature, though the first week drew only a lukewarm response from state education departments.
Q 16In what year did Canada's House of Commons officially recognize February as Black History Month?
1995
The House of Commons passed Jean Augustine's motion in December 1995; the Senate added its own unanimous recognition of February as Black History Month in March 2008.
Q 17Which Ghanaian analyst at the GLC led the creation of the UK's Black History Month?
Akyaaba Addai-Sebo
Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, a Ghanaian-born special projects coordinator at the Greater London Council, organised Britain's first Black History Month in October 1987 and invited Kwanzaa founder Maulana Karenga to the launch.
Q 18Which US president issued the 1986 proclamation designating February as 'National Black (Afro-American) History Month'?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan issued Proclamation 5443 in February 1986 after Congress passed Public Law 99-244, which designated February 1986 'National Black (Afro-American) History Month' and asked the president to proclaim it.
Q 19Which city issued the first Black History Month proclamation in its country, in 1979?
Toronto
Toronto's proclamation in 1979 followed a petition from the Ontario Black History Society; it was Canada's first municipal proclamation of the month.
Q 20In what year did Carter G. Woodson establish the Negro History Bulletin?
1937
In 1937, at the urging of Mary McLeod Bethune, Woodson established the Negro History Bulletin, which focused on the annual theme.
Lost Cause writers recast the Civil War as a 'war of Northern aggression' over states' rights rather than slavery; Woodson answered that controlling a man's thinking removes any worry about his actions.
Q 24What annual theme did ASALH set for the February observance in 2024?
African Americans and the Arts
ASALH's 2024 theme, African Americans and the Arts, honoured Black contributions to visual art, music, literature, fashion and film, from the Harlem Renaissance to hip-hop.
Q 25Which actor and director said 'I don't want a Black history month. Black history is American history'?
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman and actress Stacey Dash both criticised setting aside a single month; founder Carter G. Woodson himself wanted the study of a whole race, not a few great men.
Q 26The very first Black History Month celebration, in 1970, opened on which date?
January 2
Kent State's first Black History Month opened on January 2, 1970, and ran to February 28, organised by the university's Black United Students.
Q 27In what year did Omega Psi Phi introduce "Negro History and Literature Week"?
1924
Omega Psi Phi, Woodson's own fraternity, introduced Negro History and Literature Week in 1924 and renamed it Negro Achievement Week in 1925; Woodson's Association launched Negro History Week nationally in 1926.
Q 28Which Canadian senator's 2008 motion recognised February as Black History Month nationally?
Donald Oliver
Oliver was the first Black man appointed to Canada's Senate; his 2008 motion passed unanimously.
Q 29What annual theme did ASALH set for the February observance in 2023?
Black Resistance
ASALH's 2023 theme, Black Resistance, examined how African Americans have resisted oppression from slavery through Jim Crow to police violence, and how they built institutions of their own.
Q 30Ford's 1975 message noted the week was sponsored by the Association for the Study of what?
Afro-American Life and History
In 1975 the sponsor was the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, the name it adopted in 1972 and kept until switching to 'African American' in 2001.