Q 01/05

Which Black newspaper urged southern readers to head north, printing job listings and train schedules to help?

A) The Pittsburgh Courier

B) The Chicago Defender

C) The Amsterdam News

D) The Baltimore Afro-American

Answer · why

B) The Chicago Defender

The Chicago Defender even named a departure day: it advertised May 15, 1917 as the Great Northern Drive, a date for readers to leave together.

Q 02/05

Which Olympic champion's family left Alabama for Cleveland when he was nine, part of the Great Migration north?

A) Jesse Owens

B) Michael Johnson

C) Edwin Moses

D) Bob Beamon

Answer · why

A) Jesse Owens

Jesse Owens got his famous name there: a Cleveland teacher misheard his Southern accent when he said J.C., his initials, and the name stuck.

Q 03/05

Which cotton-eating insect spread from Mexico across the South, wrecking harvests and pushing farm families north?

A) The Hessian fly

B) The Japanese beetle

C) The boll weevil

D) The fire ant

Answer · why

C) The boll weevil

The boll weevil did such damage that Enterprise, Alabama, raised a monument to it in 1919 for forcing the town to stop relying on cotton.

Q 04/05

Which record label did Berry Gordy found in Detroit, where his parents had moved from Georgia in the Great Migration?

A) Stax

B) Atlantic

C) Vee-Jay

D) Motown

Answer · why

D) Motown

Motown began with a migrant family's savings: Berry Gordy borrowed $800 from a cooperative fund his relatives paid into.

Q 05/05

Which New Orleans trumpeter went north to Chicago in 1922 to join his mentor King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band?

A) Louis Armstrong

B) Dizzy Gillespie

C) Miles Davis

D) Buddy Bolden

Answer · why

A) Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong made enough playing second cornet at the Lincoln Gardens on the South Side to quit his day jobs.