What an Accomplishment! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Charles Diggs

Charles Diggs (1922-1998) was elected to the House of Representatives in 1955 and noticed there was little discussion between the three black representatives in Congress, so he wished to correct this. His dream would be fulfilled as more blacks were elected to the House and in 1971, the Congressional Black Caucus was formed with him being elected its first chairman. (Diggs had proposed the name Democratic Select Committee but it was Representative Charles Rangel who came up with the name.)

Its first major event was to boycott President Nixon's State of the Union address due to his refusal to meet with them. Diggs would remain a member of this caucus until his resignation in 1980 due to being convicted on eleven counts of mail fraud and filing false payroll forms.

The caucus was officially non-partisan, although a greater percentage of black Democrats joined than black Republicans (Mia Love is an example of a Republican who joined the caucus). Some black House members chose not to join (like J.C. Watts in 1995) and some were blocked from joining (like Byron Donalds in 2021).

In 1988, while living in Washington D.C., Diggs tragically died of a stroke.

Answer: Paul Cuffe

Paul Cuffe (1759-1817) was biracial; his father was black, and his mother was Native American (a Wampanoag Indian). When Cuffe was 13, his father died, and Cuffe and his brothers inherited their father's 116-acre farm. However, farm life was not from Cuffe; it was life at the sea. During the American War for Independence, Cuffe was a blockade runner--basically someone who would sneak supplies through blockaded waters. He even built his own ships to help him with this job. He did all of this with the knowledge that if it was discovered what he was doing, he would be attacked, imprisoned, maybe even killed.

As a wealthy man who had to pay a lot in taxes, Cuffe noted that although he had to pay taxes, he could not vote. This was due to the laws in the area in which he lived and not laws made by his home state of Massachusetts which at the time did not take a position. He and other black men argued before the Massachusetts state legislature that one of the 27 grievances in the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain was imposing taxes on Americans without their consent. Cuffe noted that this was what black people who couldn't vote were experiencing and therefore Massachusetts should take a position on blacks voting. Within a year, the Massachusetts Constitution was ratified forbidding slavery and allowing blacks to vote.

Thanks to his job and his investments, Cuffe became one of the richest, if not the richest, black people in the United States. With his riches, he started the first integrated school in the United States. He also donated money to the Quakers and built meeting places for them. It was Quakers who freed Cuffe's father; in fact, Quakers were known for their anti-slavery stance and would buy slaves for the sole purpose of freeing them. Cuffe would even become a Quaker later in life.

In 1812, he would become the first black person to officially meet a sitting president, James Madison. They discussed Cuffe's trips to Sierra Leone where Cuffe would try to help free black people there. Cuffe had a truly remarkable life! However, Cuffe died in 1817 as a result of his deteriorating health.

Answer: Alexander Lucius Twilight

Alexander Lucius Twilight (1795-1857) was the first African-American to earn a degree in the United States. This occurred in 1823 when Middlebury College awarded him a Bachelor of Arts degree. Following his graduation, he served as a teacher for four years, a headmaster at the Orleans County Grammar School from 1829 to his death, and a pastor at churches in Vergennes and Brownington.

He was also the first African-American who was a member of the state legislature. Specifically, from 1836 to 1837, he was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives and was the only black person in a state legislature prior to the Civil War, although almost immediately after the Civil War ended, there were large amounts of blacks in multiple state legislatures.

In 1855, Twilight suffered a paralyzing stroke and died two years later.

Answer: George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver (1864/1865-1943, the exact year of his birth is unknown) was an inventor whose was well known for his 300 uses of a peanut.

He attended Iowa State Agricultural College where he was able to get a degree in agriculture and botany. He was even invited to teach at Tuskegee Institute by Booker T. Washington where he taught for 47 years. At the time, Southern farmers had problems with boll weevils which would destroy their crops, so they turned to the peanut for help. Carver used the peanut to make peanut oil, which saved crops thus changing the economy of the South. Carver promoted responsible farming practices, like planting peanuts in rotation with cotton. This was useful because peanuts added nutrients to the soil, and nutrients would get depleted due to constant use of farming.

Using the peanut, he also made food (or a different variation of a type of food) such as cheese, coffee, flour, milk, pickles, sauce, soup, and sweet potatoes. Non-food items included axle grease, bleach, charcoal, hand lotion, linoleum, metal polish, plastics, rubbing oil, shaving cream, shampoo, synthetic rubber, and tan remover. Despite these inventions, Carver would not take credit for them, although he also would not deny creating them. He believed that everything he created came from what God revealed to him.

In 1943, Carver sustained injuries after falling down a flight of stairs, and it was those injuries that led to his death.

Answer: Dorothy West

Dorothy West (1907-1998) began her writing at quite a young age. She wrote her first story "Promise and Fulfillment" at age seven and it was published in The Boston Post when she was fourteen. One later story, "The Typewriter," which was published in an academic journal called "Opportunity," won her a trip to New York City, which she liked so much she stayed there. While there, she met fellow Harlem Renaissance writers such as Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes. In 1948, her first and most well-known novel, "The Living is Easy" was published, a short about an upwardly mobile black family, based partly on her own life.

West also spent some time living at Martha's Vineyard where her neighbor was former First Lady Jackie Kennedy (at the time, Jackie Onassis). In fact, it was Jackie who convinced West to finish writing her novel, "The Wedding", after West had struggled with completing it.

West died of natural causes on August 16, 1998.

Answer: Hiram Rhodes Revels

Hiram Rhodes Revels (1827-1901) was the first black person to be elected to federal office; specifically he was a senator from Mississippi who was chosen by the state legislature. This was prior to the ratification of the 17th Amendment, meaning it was indeed the state legislature and not the people who chose the senators. In fact, when the Mississippi state legislature began its session, Revels (a member of the state legislature at the time) said a prayer that was so impressive that it encouraged the state senate to elect him to the United States Senate.

Revels served for about a year starting in 1870. During his time in the Senate, he tried (usually unsuccessfully) to promote equality among the races within the United States. When his term was up, he decided to retire.

During the Civil War, he recruited two black regiments, one in Maryland and one in Missouri. He also served as a chaplain in the army and as a minister at the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1901, while attending a church conference in Mississippi, Revels died of a stroke.

Answer: Phillis Wheatley

In 1773, Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) had a book of poetry published called "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" making her the first black person, male or female, to have poetry published. In fact, she was still a slave at the time her poetry was published! Her poetry earned her praises from notable people, such as George Washington. In a letter to Wheatley, Washington praised a poem she wrote about him, and even considered having it published but thought it would be viewed as him expressing vanity. Nevertheless, he did extend an invitation for her to visit his military camp and to meet his staff.

Phillis Wheatley's birth name was unknown; the name Phillis came from the boat that transported her from her home country of Senegal to her new home in Boston while Wheatley was the surname of the family that bought her. They had lost a daughter about nine years prior, so they viewed Wheatley as a substitute daughter, providing her with a thorough education. Within just 16 months, she mastered English, Latin, and Greek and did well in areas such as poetry, geography, history, and astronomy.

In 1784, at the young age of 31, Wheatley died due to complications from childbirth. Her child would die soon afterwards.

Answer: C. J. Walker

Madam C.J. Walker (1867-1919) was a self-made businesswoman credited with being America's first black female millionaire. Her business was Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company, and her products was hair tonic and other beauty products.
Walker was born Sarah Breedlove, but later became known as Madam C.J. Walker, which stood for Mrs. Charles Joseph Walker, the name of her third husband. This change occurred in approximately 1906, the year she married Charles. It was also in 1906 that she started her own business.

Walker's hair fell out at a fast rate, so she tried hair tonic that was common in those days, but she was not completely satisfied with it. She decided to come up with her own hair tonic, of which she said it came to her in a dream. Walker sold other beauty products and recruited other women to help them become successful and taught them how to become successful entrepreneurs. What made her product different from other hair care products of the day was that her product emphasized the health of the women who used it.

Through her business, she became the first female millionaire, black or white. Walker used her earnings in a variety of generous ways, including spending $10,000 each year on the education of black people, funding scholarships for women at the Tuskegee Institute, contributing to St. Paul's African Methodist Episcopal Church where she attended services and which helped her during hard times, and donating to a number of charities.

In 1906, Walker died of high blood pressure (hypertension) at the age of 51.

Answer: Mary Fields

"Stagecoach" Mary Fields (1832-1914) was a slave to the family of Judge Edmund Dunne. When slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, Fields decided to continue to work for the Dunne family. In 1883, Dunne's wife died, and Fields took Dunne's five children to the Ursuline Convent of the Sacred Heart, whose mother superior was Dunne's sister, Mother Mary Amadeus. While at the convent, Fields took on roles associated at the time with men, such as building repair and maintenance, often times leadership roles. During her time there, she was known for her fierce demeanor and after an incident of her pulling a gun on a fellow worker (though she never fired it), she was kicked out of the convent.

In 1895 at age 63, she applied for a new job as a mail carrier and was accepted for being the fastest applicant to hitch a team of six horses. This made her only the second female mail carrier and the first black female mail carrier. She worked as a mail carrier for eight years across a route, which was fourteen miles long, never missing a day of work. This job also allowed her to keep in contact with the nuns she has worked with. In fact, the mother superior at the convent was the one who gave Fields a stagecoach to deliver the mail. All of this contributed to her gaining the nickname Stagecoach. She also had the help of a mule named Moses. She carried with her a rifle and a revolver, which was useful for defending her against attackers and wild animals.

When Fields died in 1914 at Cascade Falls, Montana, the funeral was the largest the town had ever experienced.

Answer: William Carney

William Carney (1840-1908) was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Second Battle of Fort Wagner in 1863, although he did not receive the medal until 1900.

Carney's father had escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad and moved to Massachusetts. Once there, he purchased his family out of slavery to join him. Carney signed up for military duty after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation where he joined the Massachusetts 54th Regiment. Later that year, the regiment was assigned to attack Fort Wagner in South Carolina. However, the attack was a failure, and the regiment was forced to retreat. When the flag carrier of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment was shot, but before the flag touched the ground, Carney caught the flag and carried until he reached the Union barracks. Carney was shot four times (one even came near his skull) and another soldier from a different regiment even offered to carry the flag for Carney, but he refused. Even when Carney crossed water that was chest high, he did not allow the flag to touch the water. For his courage and bravery, Carney would be promoted to sergeant and in 1900 would later be awarded the Medal of Honor, one of five black men to receive the medal for not letting the flag touch the ground during the Civil War. (The other four black men were part of separate battles.) Due to these wounds, he did receive an honorable discharge from the army.

Carney died in 1908 due to an elevator accident he experienced while at the Massachusetts State House.