Test your knowledge - and maybe learn something new - about the people, places and events that shaped the Civil Rights Movement.

1. The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education held that segregation was...
A. Unconstitutional in public schools
B. Unconstitutional in all public facilities
C. Unconstitutional in colleges and universities
D. Constitutional

Answer: A. Unconstitutional in public schools

Brown v. Board of Education, decided on May 17, 1954, held that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which requires equal protection under state laws. The Brown decision declared that the separate-but-equal doctrine used to keep black children out of certain schools because of their race was "inherently unequal."

2. Name the source of the following quote: "The thin disguise of 'equal' accommodations... will not mislead anyone, nor atone for the wrong this day done"
A. Plessy v. Ferguson
B. Brown v. Board of Education
C. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech
D. John F. Kennedy's 1963 civil rights address

Answer: A. Plessy v. Ferguson

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson opened the door to "separate but equal" accommodations and racial discrimination, holding that a colored man did not have the right to sit in a whites-only train car. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, the sole justice to disagree with the court, wrote the words above in his dissenting opinion. Fifty-eight years passed before Brown v. Board of Education overturned the decision.

3. Who is often called the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement?"
A. Coretta Scott King
B. Jo Ann Robinson
C. Rosa Parks
D. Fannie Lou Hamer

Answer: C. Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks launched a pivotal phase of the Civil Rights Movement in 1955 by refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a crowded bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Parks, then a 42-year-old seamstress, was arrested and convicted. The Montgomery Bus Boycott began shortly thereafter, organized with plans mapped out by Jo Ann Robinson of the Women's Political Council. Black people refused to ride the bus for 381 days until the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregation on buses unconstitutional.

4. Emmett Till, a Chicago teenager visiting relatives in the South, was kidnapped and tortured for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The trial of the two accused murderers was significant because blacks did something that was almost unheard of in the South. What did they do?
A. Sat on the jury
B. Sued the accused murderers after the men were found "not guilty"
C. Testified against white defendants
D. Refused to leave town after the KKK threatened them

Answer: C. Testified against white defendants

Till's uncle, Mose Wright, took the witness stand and pointed to the two men who came to his house and kidnapped his nephew in the summer of 1955. Photos of Till's beaten and tortured body were widely published, prompting a national outcry that energized the emerging Civil Rights Movement.

5. What was the philosophy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., helped found?
A. "Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed"
B. "We shall overcome"
C. "Free at last"
D. "In God we trust"

Answer: A. "Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed"

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth and Bayard Rustin in 1957. Its purpose was to support and coordinate local civil rights organizations. A core principle was non-violence. As such, the conference arranged voter registration drives and lunch counter sit-ins, and helped organize the 1963 March on Washington. King was president until his assassination in 1968, when Abernathy assumed leadership.

6. Which was designated a National Historic Trail in 1996 for its role in the struggle for voting rights?
A. In Washington, D.C., Independence Avenue to the Lincoln Memorial
B. The route from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi
C. The road from Birmingham to Anniston, Alabama
D. Highway 80, from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama

Answer: D. Highway 80 from Selma to Montgomery

The Selma-to-Montgomery National Historic Trail is a 54-mile stretch that begins at Brown Chapel AME Church. On March 7, 1965, hundreds of citizens began a march for voting rights for African Americans from the church to the state capitol. On what came to be known as "Bloody Sunday," the marchers were attacked by state troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge and turned back. Two days later, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., led marchers back to the bridge, then turned them back when police again confronted them. On March 21, protected by a federal court order, thousands of marchers left Selma once again, arriving in Montgomery days later. The events captured national attention through televised broadcasts.

7. What change took place in the Civil Rights Movement in the mid to late 1960s?
A. Younger blacks became frustrated with the pace of change
B. Nonviolent protest became unpopular
C. Riots replaced Freedom Rides
D. All of the above

Answer: D. All of the above

In the mid to late 1960s, subtle shifts began occurring in the Civil Rights Movement. Younger blacks became disenchanted with the pace of change that came from nonviolent methods espoused by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. More radical, militant forms of protest gained favor, and riots began to break out in major cities. This change split the movement and drove away some sympathetic whites. After King's assassination in 1968, which sparked more riots, the movement became one of independent groups rather than a unified effort.

8. What is often called the most important civil rights law since Reconstruction?
A. The Voting Rights Act of 1965
B. The Interstate Commerce Commission ruling of 1961
C. The Civil Rights Act of 1964
D. All of the above

Answer: C. The Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin. It establishes that all citizens have the right to vote and removed voter registration requirements that prohibited minorities from registering. It also prohibited discrimination in public accommodations, such as hotels and restaurants. Trade unions, schools, and employers involved with interstate commerce or the federal government were likewise barred from discriminating. The act called for an end to discrimination in public schools and federally funded programs, and established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

9. What was the Poor People's Campaign?
A. A march from Selma to Montgomery
B. A coalition of the homeless
C. The planned second phase of the Civil Rights Movement
D. The movement for better pay for janitors and housekeepers

Answer: C. The planned second phase of the Civil Rights Movement

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated a month before the Poor People's Campaign got under way. He had envisioned it as the phase that would address economic inequality and include poor people of all races, not just African Americans. The ultimate goal was to bring together protestors and activists to lobby Washington and urge creation of a $30 billion anti-poverty law. In King's honor, a demonstration was started in May 1968, but it failed to gain significant momentum.

10. Which of the following happened in the wake of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, both major victories of the Civil Rights Movement?
A. The National Organization for Women was founded
B. The American Indian Movement was founded
C. The precursor to La Rasa Unida Party was founded
D. All of the above

Answer: D All of the above

In 1966, the National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded to fight politically for equality between the sexes. In 1967, Jose Angel Gutierrez founded the Mexican American Youth Organization in San Antonio, Texas. Over time, the group evolved into La Rasa Unida Party, the first Chicano political party. In 1968, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in Minneapolis. The Civil Rights battles of the 1950s and 1960s are widely credited for laying the foundation for the social and political activism and struggle for civil rights that have continued ever since.