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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the "one-drop" rule?
(a) One drop of violence ruins a peaceful gathering.
(b) One drop of liquor makes an alcoholic.
(c) Having one white parent (or ancestor) entitles a person to be white.
(d) Having one black parent (or ancestor) makes a person black.

2. At what age does the author remember witnessing his first street fight?
(a) 12.
(b) Ten.
(c) Five.
(d) 18.

3. How did Queen Nzinga address the social insult of the Dutch ambassador?
(a) She ordered one of her advisers to become a human chair.
(b) She stabbed the ambassador.
(c) She stood on the table.
(d) She sat on the ambassador's knee.

4. What surprised the author about the sixteenth and seventeenth century portraits of Africans?
(a) Their facial features had be Anglicized.
(b) The appeared regal and serene.
(c) They were drawn in a ravenous, lustful, simian manner.
(d) The looked ethnically different from African-Americans.

5. According to the author, when Lincoln spoke of the "government of the people," to whom was he addressing?
(a) White Americans.
(b) American men.
(c) All Americans.
(d) The wealthy.

Short Answer Questions

1. For whom was the author's son named?

2. Whom does the author describe as "the God I never had"?

3. What did the author's mother urge him to do when he was in trouble at school?

4. What did the author learn from television as a young boy?

5. Coats quotes that sixty percent of all young black men who drop out of high school will:

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the author mean when he says the school system and the streets are "two arms of the same beast"?

2. What role did religion play in the author's childhood?

3. What influence did Malcom X have on the author as a young man?

4. What does the author mean when he asks: "How do I live free in this black body?"

5. How does the author define the word "black"?

6. For what reasons did the author's father punish him and why?

7. What is the author's interpretation of "The Dream"?

8. How does the author compare his childhood to that of his son?

9. How does research and study affect the author as a young man?

10. Why did the author's son experience such extreme grief when Michael Brown's killer was set free?

(see the answer keys)

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