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50 free Black Lives Matter trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Few movements of the past fifteen years have moved from a social-media post to street murals, stadium gestures and statute books as fast as Black Lives Matter. The story runs through Ferguson and Staten Island, a quarterback's decision to kneel, the summer of 2020 and a federal holiday, and a great deal of it is already half-remembered or misremembered. These 50 questions cover the three founders and the night the hashtag was born, the cases that gave the movement its chants, the anthem protests and the contracts and awards that followed, the marches that set a national record in 2020, the statues and flags and team names that fell, and the musicians, athletes and novelists who answered in their own work. Every stem carries a second fact to reason from, and every answer comes with a short explanation. The facts are stated as the cited record states them, with dates attached. Play it on your phone, print it for a classroom or quiz night, or use it to check what you actually remember about a decade of headlines.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Whose killing in Sanford, Florida, ended in the July 2013 acquittal that sparked #BlackLivesMatter?
Trayvon Martin
Trayvon Martin was walking back from a convenience store when Zimmerman, the gated community's neighbourhood-watch coordinator, followed him; the 13 July 2013 not-guilty verdict sparked the phrase that became a movement.
Q 02In May 2020 a Minneapolis store clerk called police on George Floyd, saying he had paid with what?
A counterfeit $20 bill
A counterfeit $20 bill was the whole basis of the call; the store's owner later said most customers who pass fake notes do not know they are fake.
Q 03Which NBA team sat out its 26 August 2020 playoff game against Orlando after police shot Jacob Blake?
Milwaukee Bucks
The Milwaukee Bucks simply stayed in their locker room before Game 5, and the NBA postponed every game that day and the next before players agreed to resume.
Q 04Protesters in which English city toppled slave trader Edward Colston's statue in June 2020?
Bristol
Bristol fished the statue out of its harbour four days later and now displays it, graffiti and all, in the M Shed museum.
Q 05Which sportswear brand's 2018 ad starring Colin Kaepernick read 'Believe in something'?
Nike
Nike had quietly kept Kaepernick under contract since 2011; the NFL's own spokesperson responded that his social-justice work 'deserves our attention and action'.
Q 06Which state retired its Confederate-emblem flag in 2020 and adopted a magnolia design in January 2021?
Mississippi
Mississippi voters approved the magnolia flag in November 2020 under a law that barred the Confederate emblem and required the words 'In God We Trust'.
Q 07What did Donald Trump hold up at St. John's Church on 1 June 2020 after Lafayette Square was cleared?
A Bible
A Bible was Trump's own idea, reportedly over aides' suggestions, and he posed with it before the church's fire-damaged parish house rather than going inside.
Q 08Which mayor had 'Black Lives Matter' painted in 35-foot letters on 16th Street NW in June 2020?
Muriel Bowser
Muriel Bowser unveiled the mural on 5 June 2020 and renamed the two blocks Black Lives Matter Plaza the same day, posting that she had 'turned on the night light' for the president.
Q 09Whose 8 June 2020 call led NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag at its races two days later?
Bubba Wallace
Bubba Wallace, the first Black driver with a full-time Cup Series ride since Wendell Scott in 1971, was racing the No. 43 made famous by Richard Petty.
Q 10How many named masks did Naomi Osaka bring to the 2020 US Open, one for every match needed to win it?
Seven
Seven masks, seven matches: Osaka used the last one in the final, having walked out for each round wearing the name of a Black American killed in recent years.
Q 11Which co-founder's tearful 2013 Facebook post after the Zimmerman verdict gave the movement its name?
Alicia Garza
Alicia Garza wrote that she was surprised 'at how little Black lives matter'; a friend lifted the phrase and turned it into the hashtag two days later.
Q 12Which co-founder created the hashtag in 2013 and wrote the memoir When They Call You a Terrorist?
Patrisse Cullors
Patrisse Cullors, a Los Angeles artist raised in a Van Nuys Section 8 apartment, created the hashtag from a friend's Facebook post two days after the verdict.
Q 13Which co-founder bought the movement's .com domain and chose its black-and-yellow colours in 2013?
Opal Tometi
Q 21Which 12-year-old holding an airsoft replica pistol was shot by Cleveland police in November 2014?
Tamir Rice
Tamir Rice's replica lacked the orange tip meant to mark it as a toy, and the officer fired almost immediately on arriving; a 911 caller had already said the gun was 'probably fake'.
Q 22Whose April 2015 death from injuries in a Baltimore police van led the Orioles to play a game with no fans?
Freddie Gray
Freddie Gray had been arrested for carrying a knife; officers had not strapped him in, breaching a van policy introduced only six days earlier.
Q 23A 2017 Texas jail law is named for which woman who died in a Waller County cell after a 2015 traffic stop?
Sandra Bland
Opal Tometi, the Phoenix-raised daughter of Nigerian immigrants, built the Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter pages too, and has since changed her name to Ayọ Tometi.
Q 14Which country's MP Petter Eide nominated Black Lives Matter for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize?
Norway
Norway is where the prize is decided: the Norwegian parliament appoints the committee that chooses the laureate, and the award is presented in Oslo.
Q 15Which Australian city's Peace Prize, for 'peace with justice', went to Black Lives Matter in May 2017?
Sydney
The Sydney Peace Prize is funded in part by the City of Sydney council and honours nominees who promote human rights and non-violence alongside justice.
Q 16Officer Darren Wilson's shooting of which 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri, set off weeks of protest in 2014?
Michael Brown
Michael Brown had graduated from Normandy High School; a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict Wilson that November, and the Justice Department later found he fired in self-defence.
Q 17Five St. Louis Rams players entered a November 2014 game with arms raised, acting out which Ferguson chant?
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up, don't shoot grew from early reports that the Ferguson teenager had his hands raised, claims a federal investigation later found unsupported; four Congressional Black Caucus members repeated the gesture in the House.
Q 18A 2015 Justice Department report found Ferguson's council relied on what to fund municipal services?
Court fines and fees
Court fines and fees were Ferguson's second-largest revenue source in 2013, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor later cited the report at length in a Supreme Court dissent.
Q 19Notre Dame's women's team wore which phrase on warm-ups on 13 December 2014, days after LeBron James did?
I can't breathe
I can't breathe were the last words of a Staten Island man held in a police chokehold that July; President Obama said LeBron 'did the right thing' when critics complained.
Q 20Who died in a banned NYPD chokehold in July 2014 during a Staten Island arrest over untaxed cigarettes?
Eric Garner
Eric Garner repeated the same three-word plea 11 times while pinned to the pavement, and a bystander's phone video turned his death into a national case.
Sandra Bland had been pulled over for failing to signal a lane change; investigators found the jail skipped required cell checks and mental-health training.
Q 24Whose 2016 shooting at a Minnesota traffic stop was streamed live on Facebook by his girlfriend in the car?
Philando Castile
Philando Castile had been stopped for a broken brake light; Diamond Reynolds's 10-minute stream was viewed 2.5 million times by that afternoon.
Q 25DeRay Mckesson co-founded which police-reform platform in 2015, the group behind 2020's '8 Can't Wait'?
Campaign Zero
Campaign Zero's four founders had launched Mapping Police Violence, a database of 2014 police killings, four months earlier; 8 Can't Wait tracks eight use-of-force policies city by city.
Q 26Nate Boyer, who convinced Colin Kaepernick to kneel instead of sit in 2016, served in which Army unit?
The Green Berets
The Green Berets veteran suggested kneeling as a more respectful gesture toward veterans, and Kaepernick adopted it from the final preseason game onward, kneeling before every game that season.
Q 27Which NFL team, Super Bowl XLVII finalists, was Colin Kaepernick playing for when he first knelt in 2016?
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers had reached that Super Bowl, their first since 1994, only after Kaepernick took over as starter mid-season in 2012 from an injured Alex Smith.
Q 28Which safety, the first to kneel beside Colin Kaepernick in 2016, later settled his own collusion claim?
Eric Reid
Eric Reid, a 2014 Pro Bowler drafted in the first round in 2013, settled with the league in a related case; he had knelt beside Kaepernick from the 2016 preseason.
Q 29Which US women's soccer star knelt for the anthem at a 4 September 2016 NWSL match, citing Kaepernick?
Megan Rapinoe
Megan Rapinoe knelt again before a US match against Thailand days later, prompting US Soccer to say it expected players to stand.
Q 30Colin Kaepernick's 2017 collusion grievance against the NFL's owners was settled confidentially in which year?
2019
The 2019 settlement came after Kaepernick had gone two full seasons unsigned; later that year the NFL staged a hastily arranged Atlanta workout for him that produced no contract.