Black Sports Trivia: Black Athletes Who Made History
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49 free Black Sports Trivia: Black Athletes Who Made History trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Black athletes have broken every colour line in sport, usually years before the rest of society caught up. This Black sports trivia quiz covers the pioneers and the record-breakers: Jack Johnson and Joe Louis, Jesse Owens in Berlin, Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby, Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe, Wilma Rudolph, Bill Russell as the NBA's first Black head coach, Fritz Pollard, Kenny Washington, Marlin Briscoe and Doug Williams in football, Willie O'Ree in hockey, Wendell Scott in NASCAR, Charlie Sifford and Tiger Woods in golf, and Vonetta Flowers, the first Black athlete to win Winter Olympic gold. It also covers the modern greats and the milestones behind their names: Muhammad Ali, Hank Aaron, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Serena and Venus Williams, Usain Bolt, Flo-Jo, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Sheryl Swoopes, Naomi Osaka, Lewis Hamilton, Bubba Wallace, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and Colin Kaepernick. Forty-five questions run from easy for casual fans to expert for sports historians, and every one is a specific fact rather than a vague 'first'. Every answer is checked against documented records rather than listicles, so it works for a Black History Month quiz, a classroom or a sports bar round.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Jackie Robinson broke MLB's colour line on April 15, 1947, starting at first base for which team?
Brooklyn Dodgers
The Brooklyn Dodgers gave Jackie Robinson his debut that day; every April 15, all MLB players now wear his number 42, which the league retired for good in 1997.
Q 02Which award did Jackie Robinson win in its inaugural season, 1947?
Rookie of the Year
Rookie of the Year went to Jackie Robinson the first time it was awarded nationally, when one prize covered both leagues; 40 years later MLB named the award after him.
Q 03Who was the American League's first Black player, debuting for Cleveland eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson?
Larry Doby
Larry Doby went straight from the Newark Eagles to Cleveland on July 5, 1947, the first player to jump directly from the Negro leagues to the majors.
Q 04Which Chicago American Giants owner-manager, known as the father of Black baseball, founded the Negro National League in 1920?
Rube Foster
Rube Foster, a star pitcher turned owner, modelled the league on the majors and ran it as president while his own American Giants won its first three pennants.
Q 05Who became MLB's first Black manager in 1975?
Frank Robinson
Frank Robinson became player-manager of the Cleveland Indians in 1975, MLB's first Black manager, and homered in his first game in charge on April 8.
Q 06Eddie Mathews and which teammate hit a record 863 home runs as a pair?
Hank Aaron
Hank Aaron and Mathews hit them for the Braves between 1954 and 1966, taking the record for home runs by teammates away from Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
Q 07Who was the first Black world heavyweight boxing champion, reigning from 1908 to 1915?
Jack Johnson
Jack Johnson beat Tommy Burns in Sydney on December 26, 1908 and held the title until Jess Willard stopped him in Havana in 1915; his 1910 win over James J. Jeffries sparked race riots.
Q 08Which heavyweight champion made 25 consecutive title defences between 1937 and 1948?
Joe Louis
Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber, defended so often and so easily around 1940 that his run of outmatched challengers was nicknamed the 'Bum of the Month Club'.
Q 09Muhammad Ali won light-heavyweight gold at the 1960 Rome Olympics at 18, boxing under which birth name?
Cassius Clay
Cassius Clay was named, like his father, after a 19th-century white abolitionist; he later called it his 'slave name' and became Muhammad Ali in 1964.
Q 10Muhammad Ali's 1974 'Rumble in the Jungle' in Zaire was fought against which opponent?
George Foreman
George Foreman punched himself out while Ali leaned back on the ropes, the 'rope-a-dope', and Ali knocked him out in the eighth round.
Q 11Which boxer, often called the greatest pound for pound, took his ring name from another amateur's fight card?
Sugar Ray Robinson
Sugar Ray Robinson was born Walker Smith Jr.; too young to box legally, he fought on the card of another amateur named Ray Robinson, and the name stuck.
Q 12Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in which city?
Berlin
In Berlin, Jesse Owens won the 100m, 200m, long jump and sprint relay; back home, he said, it was President Roosevelt who snubbed him, sending not even a telegram.
Q 13Wilma Rudolph overcame which childhood illness before winning three golds at the 1960 Rome Olympics?
Polio
Q 21Venus Williams won five of her seven major singles titles at which tournament?
Wimbledon
Wimbledon gave Venus Williams five of her seven major singles titles; after she campaigned for equal pay, her 2007 win there was the first to earn a woman the same prize money as the men's champion.
Q 22Naomi Osaka became the first player from which continent to hold the world number one singles ranking?
Asia
Asia: Naomi Osaka, raised in the United States from the age of three, plays for Japan, her birthplace, and gave up her American citizenship before the Tokyo Olympics to keep doing so.
Q 23Tiger Woods won his first major at which 1997 tournament?
The Masters
Polio weakened Wilma Rudolph's left leg and put it in a brace; her family took turns massaging the leg every day until she could walk without support.
Q 14Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised black-gloved fists on the podium at which Olympics?
Mexico City 1968
Mexico City 1968 saw Smith and Carlos raise their fists during the anthem after the 200m; the IOC then forced the US team to expel both men from the Games.
Q 15Florence Griffith Joyner's 100m world mark of 10.49, set in 1988, had what status in 2025?
It still stands
It still stands: no woman has run faster since, even though the trackside gauge showed no wind at all on a gusty day, which has fuelled doubt about the time ever since.
Q 16Jackie Joyner-Kersee set a world record in which event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics?
Heptathlon
Heptathlon: her Seoul score was still the world record in 2025; a grandmother had named her after Jacqueline Kennedy, hoping she would be the 'first lady' of something.
Q 17Usain Bolt first won Olympic 100m gold at which Games?
Beijing 2008
Beijing 2008: Bolt eased up and began celebrating before the line yet still ran a world-record 9.69, then cut the record to 9.58 a year later.
Q 18Who was the first Black player to win a Grand Slam tennis title, taking the 1956 French Open?
Althea Gibson
Althea Gibson won the 1956 French title and four more major singles crowns by 1958; amateur tennis paid no prize money, so she turned professional and later joined the LPGA tour as a golfer.
Q 19The main stadium of which Grand Slam tennis tournament is named after Arthur Ashe?
The US Open
The US Open plays its finals in Arthur Ashe Stadium; Ashe won its first Open Era edition in 1968 but, still an amateur, could not accept the $14,000 prize, which went to the runner-up.
Q 20Serena Williams finished one major short of whose record?
Margaret Court
Margaret Court won 24 major singles titles; Serena's 23rd came at the 2017 Australian Open, which she won while about two months pregnant.
The Masters: Woods, 21, won by a record 12 strokes at Augusta National, a club that had admitted no Black members until the 1990s.
Q 24Which golfer broke the PGA Tour's colour barrier and won the 1967 Greater Hartford Open?
Charlie Sifford
Charlie Sifford, six times National Negro Open champion, challenged the PGA's 'Caucasian-only' membership clause, and the rule was scrapped in 1961.
Q 25Who became the NBA's first Black head coach in 1966?
Bill Russell
Bill Russell succeeded Red Auerbach as player-coach in 1966 and won two more titles in the role, in 1968 and 1969.
Q 26Who was the first African American to play in an NBA game, on October 31, 1950?
Earl Lloyd
Earl Lloyd got there first by a quirk of the schedule: his Washington Capitols opened on October 31, 1950, a day before Chuck Cooper's debut and four days before Nat Clifton's.
Q 27Which team drafted Chuck Cooper in 1950, making him the first African American drafted into the NBA?
Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics, under owner Walter Brown, took Chuck Cooper of Duquesne in the second round on April 25, 1950, and seven rounds later a second team drafted a Black player too.
Q 28Texas Western started five Black players in the 1966 NCAA final and beat which all-white team?
Kentucky
Kentucky lost 72-65 to the Miners, whose coach Don Haskins said he wasn't out to make history: he had simply played his best players.
Q 29Which 1970s Milwaukee Buck won a record six NBA MVPs?
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won his first MVP as Lew Alcindor, in the year he began using his Muslim name in public, then took two more with the Bucks and three with the Lakers.
Q 30Which former Texas Tech star was the first player signed by the WNBA?
Sheryl Swoopes
Sheryl Swoopes signed before the league's first season, then missed its opening weeks to give birth to her son and came back to help the Houston Comets win the 1997 title.