Trivia Bowl Business & Education Questions

In 1975, who became the first African American to own and operate a television station in the United States, WGPR-TV in Detroit, MI?

William Venoid Banks

Born in Geneva, KY, who became the owner of the first black radio station in Detroit, in 1964?

William Venoid Banks

Who built San Francisco‟s first hotel and opened California‟s first public school?

William Leidesdorff

Who was the first African American appointed to the executive board of the Hopkinsville Chamber of Commerce and also the first to chair the Area Development District in Kentucky?

Walton N. Smith

What is the real name of Famous Amos?

Wally Amos

What colonial era crop had a significant shortage of workers which demanded a large number of Africans to be imported to the Americas?

Tobacco

What was the full name of Hopkinsville native Ted Poston, New York Post reporter/author?

Theodore Roosevelt Augustus Major Poston

What was the name of the enterprise Barney Ford formed in Nicaragua?

The United States Hotel And Restaurant

While in New York, Ulysses Poston created what daily African American newspapers?

The Negro World and The New York Contender

In 1917 A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen founded a radical monthly magazine called what?

The Messenger

Who was a reporter for the New York Post and regarded journalism as “Father Of Minorities”?

Ted Poston

What Hopkinsville native was the first African American reporter for The New York Post and covered many of the race disputes in the South?

Ted Poston

Who was known as the “Dean of the Negro Newspapermen”?

T. ThomasFortune

Paul Cuffe owned what kind of company?

Shipbuilding and shipping

What was Madame C.J. Walker’s real name?

Sara Breedlove Walker

Who was the founder of the National Negro Finance Corporation?

Robert Moton

Who became the first African American billionaire in 2001?

Robert "Bob" Johnson

Whose career with Kentucky Educational Television (KET) began in 1997 with the launch of the first statewide minority affairs program and continues as producer of KET's longest running public affairs program, Comment on Kentucky?

Renee Shaw

What successful businessman was also the founder of Negro Free Masonry?

Prince Hall

Available since 1884, what is the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States?

Philadelphia Tribune

In the late 19th century, what Hopkinsville businessman was known as "The Richest Negro in the South?

Peter Postel (or Postell),Sr.

Patricia Garrison-Corbin, was the founder, chair, and chief executive officer of what company, which became the first African American female-owned Wall Street financial services corporation?

P. G. Corbin & Company

Who became the first African American female billionaire in 2004?

Oprah Winfrey

What Hopkinsville native was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1956 and later became a journalist for the Indianapolis Recorder and Hoosier Herald?

Opal L. Tandy

Born in 1810, who was William Leidesdorff?

One of the first Black American millionaires

Dr. Louis C. Roudanez founded this first daily black newspaper in 1864. Name it.

New Orleans Tribune

Created by John H. Johnson in 1943, what publication similar in form to Reader’s Digest was later replaced by Black World?

Negro Digest

What was the name of the first magazine published by John H. Johnson?

Negro Digest

Generating revenues over $88 billion dollars annually,how many black-owned businesses were there in the United States in 2002?

nearly 1.2 million

What was the name of the first Black American radio network?

National Negro Network

What Black American woman founded the National Trade and Professional School for Women and Girls, Inc.?

Nannie HelenBurroughs

What occupation do Iman, Beverly Johnson, and Naomi Sims have in common?

Modeling

What company‟s popular commercial featured a tape recording of Ella Fitzgerald‟s voice shattering a glass?

Memorex

Who was the first Black network television anchor?

Max Robinson

Who was the first Black American woman bank president?

Maggie Lena Walker

Whose sales of innovative beauty products sold throughout the United States and the Caribbean led her to become the first African American female millionaire?

Madam C.J. Walker

Who is the current Chairman and CEO of Johnson Publishing Company?

Linda Johnson Rice

Who published the first Black American women‟s newspaper in the US?

Josephine Ruffin

Who was the first Black American to have a seat on the New York Stock Exchange?

Joseph L. Searles

Established in 1945, this publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines is the world's largest black-owned publishing company. Name it.

Johnson Publishing Company

Baltimore‟s newspaper, the Afro-American, was founded by what former slave?

John H. Murphy

The Johnson Publishing Company was founded in Chicago in 1945 by what person?

John H. Johnson

Who founded the magazine Ebony?

John H. Johnson

Freedom's Journal , the first black newspaper published in America, was founded in 1827 in New York City by whom?

John B. Russwurm and Samuel E. Cornish

What company has a successful series of television commercials that started in 1974 and features Bill Cosby?

Jell-O

In 1981 Pam Johnson became the first black woman to control which mainstream daily publication?

Ithaca Journal

Who was the founder and president of the first Black American national labor union in1869?

Isaac Myers

Opal Tandy, journalist and Hopkinsville native, purchased the newspaper Hoosier Herald and changed its name to what?

Indiana Herald

Who was the first Black American to become captain of an American merchant marine ship?

Hugh Mulzac

During the first two

thirds of the seventeenth century what two countries dominated the African slave trade?

What is the name of Oprah Winfrey‟s TV production company?

Harpo Productions

What did Madam C.J. Walker invent in 1905 that was sold door to

door?

Returning to Kentucky after serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, Peter Postel, Sr. opened what type of business?

Grocery store

What periodical was the first black newspaper published in the United States?

Freedom’s Journal

The North Star was a weekly newspaper founded by which abolitionist in1847?

Frederick Douglass

What company was the largest slave

trading operation in the south?

What 1915 natural disaster ruined crops and homes of many farmers in the Mississippi Valley region?

Flooding

What was the name of Bill Cosby‟s first bestselling book?

Fatherhood

What magazine is called “The Magazine of Today‟s Black Woman”?

Essence

What country secured a monopoly over the slave trade to the New World in1713?

England

What famous Black American was a reporter on the CBS television program 60 Minutes?

Ed Bradley

What popular magazine did John H. Johnson begin in 1945?

Ebony

Who founded the publication Black Enterprise in 1970?

Earl G. Graves, Sr.

Who was the founder of the first African

American female owned Wall Street financial services corporation.

Blues artist Mamie Smith sold nearly a million copies of what song in 1920?

Crazy Blues

From 1913 to 1915 price reductions of what crop hurt the Southern farmers and brought on an economic depression?

Cotton

What record company helped bring Mahalia Jackson‟s gospel music to a large audience?

Columbia Records

Bernard Shaw was the Chief Washington Correspondent for what major television station?

CNN

This person was born in Christian County, Kentucky, in 1874, was the son of former slaves, saved enough money to attend school, became a school teacher, founded three newspapers, was a painter, a poet, and a lawyer. Who was he?

Claybron W. Merriweather

Where was Ephraim Poston, owner and editor of the newspaper Hopkinsville Contender, born?

Clarksville, TN

For what is Wally Amos famous?

Chocolate chip cookies

In 1954, Mahalia Jackson began a weekly radio program. On what radio network was the show aired?

CBS

Who founded the National Negro Business League in 1900?

Booker T. Washington

What was the name of Marcus Garvey‟s shipping company that was owned and operated entirely by Blacks?

Black Star Line

Who is Mary Ann Shadd Cary?

Black Newspaperwoman

Who was the first Black man to appear on the cover of Life magazine?

Billy Eckstine

Name at least two black 1980s television show producers.

Bill Cosby, Tim Reid, Debbie Allen, Quincy Jones, and Keenan Ivory Wayans

In 1924, Walter White published a best-selling novel The Fire in the Flint, which covered what subject? 

Bigotry

Who was the first Black American to appear on the cover of Vogue magazine?

Beverly Johnson

In 1991, what became the first black

controlled company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange?

From 1893 until the 1950s, Nancy Green served as the world's first living trademark as the image of what product?

Aunt Jemima pancake mix

What company was founded in Harlem in 1940 to provide opportunities for black actors, writers and directors as well as technicians?

American NegroTheatre

Created by Rodney J. Reynolds in 1994, this magazine focuses on black history and culture.

AmericanLegacy

In 1910 about fifty percent of black labor force was employed in what industry?

Agriculture

Slaves held a variety of tasks such as skilled craftsmen, trappers, nurses, and house servants. What work did the majority of slaves perform?

Agricultural labor in the Southern colonies (They worked in the fields.)

What labor activist who founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925 initiated the 1963 March on Washington?

A Philip Randolph

In the agricultural field some former slaves were sharecroppers. What was meant by this term?

A tenant farmer would give his share of crops raised to the landlord as rent

Blues vocalist, song writer, and guitarist John Brim also owned what businesses in Chicago?

a dry cleaning business and a record store

Ed Bradley was a member of what news team?

60 Minutes

What was the name of Eddie Murphy's first movie which grossed over 100 million dollars and propelled him into movie stardom?

48 hours

By 2002, revenues for black

owned businesses rose to what amount, accounting for 5% of all nonfarm businesses in the United States?

In what year did A. Philip Randolph organize the union, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters?

1925

One of the first black organized labor unions, the Associated Colored Employees of America was formed in what year?

1917

Northern industries experiencing an economic boom during World War I contributed to the Great Migration beginning in what year?

1915

In what year did Maggie Lena Walker become the first Black American woman bank president?

1903

Born a slave in North Carolina, Peter Postel, Sr.'s estate was later valued at $500,000 as owner of a merchant business in Hopkinsville. In what year was he born?

1841

In what year did the first African indentured servants arrive at Jamestown,Virginia?

1619

Before A. Philip Randolph established a successful labor union for black train porters, approximately how much money were these workers paid per day?

$2.00

Who was the first Black American woman to have her own weekly television series, Julia?

Diahann Carroll

What organization helps fund over forty Black American colleges?

United Negro CollegeFund