African American Studies Objective Question and Answer
African American Studies MCQ Multiple Choice Questions - Page 2 for Practice
31. In her 2010 book 'The New Jim Crow', legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that mass incarceration in the United States operates primarily as what?
Correct Answer is: A redesigned racial caste system
Solution:
Michelle Alexander argues that mass incarceration functions as a modern, racialized caste system that disproportionately targets Black men and strips them of civil rights.
32. Which Howard University philosophy professor edited the landmark 1925 anthology 'The New Negro', defining the artistic movement of the Harlem Renaissance?
Correct Answer is: Alain Locke
Solution:
Alain Locke edited 'The New Negro: An Interpretation', capturing the cultural, artistic, and literary movement that came to define the Harlem Renaissance.
33. Which civil rights organization, founded in Chicago in 1942, organized the 1961 Freedom Rides to test non-enforcement of federal desegregation laws on interstate buses?
Correct Answer is: Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Solution:
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) pioneered nonviolent direct-action tactics and organized the Freedom Rides in 1961 to challenge illegal segregation in interstate travel.
34. Which scholar popularized the concept of 'Afrocentricity' as a key methodology in Africana Studies during the 1980s?
Correct Answer is: Molefi Kete Asante
Solution:
Molefi Kete Asante introduced Afrocentricity to position African agency and cultural perspectives at the center of academic inquiry.
35. Whose vast personal collection of over 10,000 books, prints, and manuscripts became the founding collection for the NYPL's Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem?
Correct Answer is: Arturo Alfonso Schomburg
Solution:
Afro-Puerto Rican collector and scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg sold his extensive collection to the New York Public Library in 1926, establishing what is now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
36. Which classic 1933 book by Carter G. Woodson critiques the American education system for failing to teach Black history and social leadership?
Correct Answer is: The Mis-Education of the Negro
Solution:
Carter G. Woodson published 'The Mis-Education of the Negro' in 1933, arguing that Western schooling indoctrinated African Americans to accept culturally dependent and subordinate roles in society.
37. Which 1963 book by James Baldwin consists of two passionate essays addressing the central role of race in American history and warning of an impending racial crisis?
Correct Answer is: The Fire Next Time
Solution:
'The Fire Next Time' contains two landmark essays by James Baldwin that examine racial injustice, religion, and civil rights in America.
38. Known as 'The Man Who Killed Jim Crow,' which legal scholar and NAACP special counsel spent years laying the legal strategy that ultimately dismantled legal segregation?
Correct Answer is: Charles Hamilton Houston
Solution:
Charles Hamilton Houston was a pioneering civil rights lawyer and Howard Law dean who created the systematic litigation strategy against 'separate but equal' that led to Brown v. Board of Education.
39. In his influential 1982 comparative study 'Slavery and Social Death', sociologist Orlando Patterson defined slavery as what key sociological condition?
Correct Answer is: The permanent violent domination of natally alienated persons
Solution:
Orlando Patterson defined slavery as the 'permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and dishonored persons,' introducing the term 'social death' to explain the loss of claim to birthright and identity.
40. Founded in 1896 with Mary Church Terrell as its first president, what was the official motto of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW)?
Correct Answer is: Lifting as We Climb
Solution:
The NACW adopted the motto 'Lifting as We Climb' to highlight Black women's dedication to social reform and uplifting their entire community while advancing gender equality.
41. Which seminal 1987 essay by Hortense Spillers analyzed how the Middle Passage un-gendered enslaved African bodies, introducing foundational theoretical concepts like 'flesh' versus 'body'?
Correct Answer is: Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book
Solution:
Hortense Spillers authored 'Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe' in 1987, radically transforming Black feminist literary theory by examining the violence of slave law on kinship and gender.
42. Who co-authored the influential 1967 political manifesto 'Black Power: The Politics of Liberation', which popularized the term 'institutional racism'?
Correct Answer is: Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton
Solution:
Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) and political scientist Charles V. Hamilton wrote 'Black Power' in 1967, offering a call for Black political self-determination and defining institutional racism.
43. Which official publication of the National Urban League, edited by sociologist Charles S. Johnson starting in 1923, played a major role in launching Harlem Renaissance writers?
Correct Answer is: Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life
Solution:
'Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life' hosted annual literary contests that recognized and published emerging writers such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.
44. Which cultural historian and theorist introduced the concept of 'critical fabulation' to write about the silenced lives of enslaved women in historical archives?
Correct Answer is: Saidiya Hartman
Solution:
Saidiya Hartman introduced 'critical fabulation' as a narrative practice to illuminate the lost or silenced histories of enslaved people where traditional archives offer incomplete records.
Crenshaw introduced intersectionality to demonstrate how race, gender, class, and other identity categories interact within systems of power.
46. In 1791, which African American mathematician and astronomer sent a manuscript almanac to Thomas Jefferson alongside a letter challenging Jefferson's claims of Black intellectual inferiority?
Correct Answer is: Benjamin Banneker
Solution:
Benjamin Banneker sent his self-calculated astronomical almanac to Thomas Jefferson to refute anti-Black intelligence claims and directly confront Jefferson on his slaveholding.
47. Which 1957 book by sociologist E. Franklin Frazier critiqued the middle-class African American population for isolating itself from lower-class Black realities while emulating white middle-class values?
Correct Answer is: Black Bourgeoisie
Solution:
E. Franklin Frazier's 'Black Bourgeoisie' offered a controversial critique of the Black middle class, arguing that it suffered from cultural isolation and a crisis of identity.
48. What alternative educational initiative was established in Mississippi during the 1964 Freedom Summer by SNCC to teach civics, political empowerment, and humanities to Black youth?
Correct Answer is: Freedom Schools
Solution:
Freedom Schools were set up across Mississippi in 1964 to bypass segregated, underfunded state schools and offer Black students a radical curriculum focused on civil rights and leadership.
49. Written during the height of the 1919 anti-Black racial violence, which famous sonnet by Claude McKay became an anthem of militant defiance and self-defense?
Correct Answer is: If We Must Die
Solution:
Claude McKay wrote 'If We Must Die' in 1919 as a call for African Americans to resist racial terror and fight for dignity, even against overwhelming force.
50. What foundational document, written in October 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, detailed the political platform and core demands of the Black Panther Party?
Correct Answer is: The Ten-Point Program
Solution:
The Ten-Point Program articulated the Black Panther Party's demands for land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace, and an end to police brutality.
51. Which 1952 psychoanalytic and anti-colonial work by Martinican psychiatrist Frantz Fanon analyzed the psychological internalized trauma caused by white supremacy on Black individuals?
Correct Answer is: Black Skin, White Masks
Solution:
In 'Black Skin, White Masks', Frantz Fanon used psychoanalysis and existential theory to examine how anti-Black racism and colonial domination inflict psychological damage on Black consciousness.
52. Between 1897 and 1910, W.E.B. Du Bois directed a pioneering series of annual empirical sociological research projects on Black Southern life at which academic institution?
Correct Answer is: Atlanta University
Solution:
While serving on the faculty at Atlanta University, Du Bois organized the Atlanta University Studies, producing early systematic social science research on Black communities.
53. Which 1987 book by Hazel Carby examined how 19th-century Black women writers confronted and reshaped prevailing Victorian notions of 'true womanhood' and domesticity?
Correct Answer is: Reconstructing Womanhood
Solution:
Hazel Carby's 'Reconstructing Womanhood' analyzed 19th- and early 20th-century Black female writers who challenged white bourgeois ideals of womanhood.
54. What was the name of the internationally distributed weekly newspaper published by Marcus Garvey and the UNIA from 1918 to 1933 to spread Pan-African ideals?
Correct Answer is: Negro World
Solution:
'Negro World' was the primary organ of the UNIA, printed in multiple languages and distributed worldwide to build Pan-African solidarity.
55. Which 2010 historical account by Isabel Wilkerson tells the epic story of the decades-long relocation of Black Southerners through three personal narratives?
Correct Answer is: The Warmth of Other Suns
Solution:
Isabel Wilkerson's 'The Warmth of Other Suns' chronicles the Great Migration of six million African Americans who fled the Jim Crow South between 1915 and 1970.
56. Which 1892 book by Anna Julia Cooper is considered one of the founding texts of Black feminist thought?
Correct Answer is: A Voice from the South
Solution:
In 'A Voice from the South', Anna Julia Cooper argued that the elevation of Black women was essential to the uplift of the entire Black community.
57. What was the title of Shirley Chisholm's 1970 autobiography, reflecting her political independence as the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress?
Correct Answer is: Unbought and Unbossed
Solution:
Shirley Chisholm published 'Unbought and Unbossed' in 1970, summarizing her career strategy of remaining independent from party bosses and special interests.
58. Who introduced the term 'Womanism' in her 1983 book 'In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens' to describe Black feminist perspectives?
Correct Answer is: Alice Walker
Solution:
Alice Walker coined 'Womanism' to embody a feminist perspective rooted specifically in the culture and lived experiences of Black women and women of color.
59. Which major 1935 work by W.E.B. Du Bois re-examined the post-Civil War era and emphasized the democratic agency of newly freed Black people?
Correct Answer is: Black Reconstruction in America
Solution:
'Black Reconstruction in America' countered prevailing racist historiography by showing how Black Americans actively shaped democratic reform during Reconstruction.
60. What academic publication, founded in 1916 by Carter G. Woodson, stands as one of the oldest journals dedicated to African American history?
Correct Answer is: Journal of African American History
Solution:
Originally titled the 'Journal of Negro History', it was renamed the 'Journal of African American History' in 2002 and remains a flagship publication.
