Civil Rights Movement Quiz

Grade 8 · Social Studies · Quiz

Test your knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement, its key figures, events, and legislative achievements.

Questions

Who refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, helping spark the Civil Rights Movement?
1. Coretta Scott King
2. Fannie Lou Hamer
3. Rosa Parks
4. Thurgood Marshall
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Answer: Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, when she refused to move to the back of a Montgomery city bus. Her arrest triggered the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott.
The 'I Have a Dream' speech was delivered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
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Answer: True
The March on Washington on August 28, 1963 ended at the Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his speech to 250,000 people gathered on the National Mall.
The Supreme Court case ___ v. Board of Education (1954) declared school segregation unconstitutional.
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Answer: Brown
Brown v. Board of Education was named after Oliver Brown, a Black father whose daughter was denied entry to a white school in Topeka, Kansas. Thurgood Marshall argued the case for the NAACP.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act did NOT cover which area?
1. Employment discrimination
2. Public accommodations
3. Voting rights in federal elections
4. School integration mandates as a direct provision
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Answer: Voting rights in federal elections
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 covered employment and public accommodations but voting rights were specifically addressed in the separate Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Freedom Riders challenged segregation on interstate bus routes in 1961.
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Answer: True
Freedom Riders were interracial groups who rode interstate buses into the South to challenge segregated bus terminals. They were attacked by violent mobs in Alabama but brought national attention to Southern segregation.
What strategy did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. advocate during the Civil Rights Movement?
1. Armed resistance
2. Political assassination
3. Nonviolent direct action
4. Mass emigration to Northern cities
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Answer: Nonviolent direct action
King was deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and believed nonviolent protest was both morally superior and strategically effective — exposing the violence of the system to the nation and the world.
The Voting Rights Act was passed in ___.
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Answer: 1965
The Voting Rights Act was signed by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965. It banned literacy tests and allowed federal oversight of elections in states with histories of discrimination.
In which city did students stage a famous sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in 1960?
1. Atlanta
2. Birmingham
3. Greensboro
4. Memphis
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Answer: Greensboro
On February 1, 1960, four Black college students sat at a whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, NC and refused to leave when denied service. Within weeks, sit-ins spread to 50+ cities.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Answer: True
Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 at age 35, making him the youngest person ever to receive it at that time. He donated the entire $54,000 prize to the Civil Rights Movement.
Dr. King's 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' was written in response to:
1. President Kennedy's support for civil rights
2. White clergymen who criticized nonviolent protest as 'unwise and untimely'
3. The passage of the Civil Rights Act
4. Malcolm X's speeches
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Answer: White clergymen who criticized nonviolent protest as 'unwise and untimely'
King wrote the letter in April 1963 while imprisoned for demonstrating in Birmingham without a permit. It became one of the most important documents in American history, defending civil disobedience.

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