Civil Rights Movements Quiz

Grade 12 · Social Studies · Quiz

Test your knowledge of the civil rights movements that reshaped American society — key events, leaders, laws, and strategies.

Questions

Who delivered the 'I Have a Dream' speech at the 1963 March on Washington?
1. Malcolm X
2. Thurgood Marshall
3. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
4. John Lewis
Show answer
Answer: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King delivered his iconic 'I Have a Dream' speech on August 28, 1963, to over 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial. The speech is considered one of the greatest in American history and crystallized the moral vision of the civil rights movement.
The 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920.
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Answer: True
The 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, after decades of activism by the suffrage movement. It prohibited denying the right to vote based on sex, giving women the franchise nationwide — though women of color still faced discriminatory barriers until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The NAACP attorney who argued and won Brown v. Board of Education later became the first Black Supreme Court Justice: ___.
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Answer: Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall brilliantly argued the Brown v. Board cases for the NAACP. President Johnson appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1967, making him the first African American Justice in U.S. history.
The Stonewall Riots of 1969 are considered the launching point for which movement?
1. Women's liberation movement
2. LGBTQ+ rights movement
3. Disability rights movement
4. Latino civil rights movement
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Answer: LGBTQ+ rights movement
The Stonewall Inn riots began on June 28, 1969, when patrons — many of them transgender women of color — resisted a police raid. The multi-day uprising galvanized the LGBTQ+ community and launched the modern fight for gay and lesbian rights.
Which strategy involves using lawsuits to challenge discriminatory laws through the courts?
1. Direct action
2. Lobbying
3. Litigation
4. Grassroots organizing
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Answer: Litigation
Litigation — taking cases to court — was a cornerstone of the NAACP's strategy. By winning cases like Brown v. Board, they used the legal system to dismantle discriminatory laws, often when legislative change was blocked by political resistance.
The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990 and prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities.
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Answer: True
The ADA, signed by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990, is the most comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities. It prohibits discrimination in employment, public services, and accommodations, and requires reasonable accommodations.
Cesar Chavez co-founded the ___ Workers of America to fight for the rights of farmworkers.
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Answer: United Farm
Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers (UFW) in 1962. The UFW organized mostly Latino and Filipino farmworkers who faced extreme exploitation, using boycotts, strikes, and marches to win better wages and conditions.
Which event directly led Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
1. The assassination of JFK
2. Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama
3. The Birmingham church bombing
4. The March on Washington
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Answer: Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama
On March 7, 1965 — Bloody Sunday — state troopers attacked peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on national television. The brutal images shocked the country and gave Johnson the political momentum to push the Voting Rights Act through Congress.
Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. agreed on nonviolent resistance as the best strategy for civil rights.
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Answer: False
Malcolm X and MLK had notably different visions. King advocated nonviolent integration and cooperation with white allies. Malcolm X, at least early in his career as a Nation of Islam minister, advocated Black self-determination and did not reject self-defense. They met only once, briefly.
The concept that people can face overlapping, compounding forms of discrimination (e.g., race AND gender) is called:
1. Segregation
2. Assimilation
3. Intersectionality
4. Pluralism
Show answer
Answer: Intersectionality
The term 'intersectionality' was coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. It describes how race, gender, class, and other identities overlap to create unique, compounding forms of discrimination that can't be fully understood by examining any single factor alone.

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