When is MLK Day 2027?

Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2027 is Monday, January 18, 2027. It is a federal holiday on the third Monday in January, close to Dr. King's birthday on January 15.

How many MLK trivia questions do I need for a team meeting?

Plan on about 10 questions per 10 minutes, including reading the answers. For a 30-minute session, two or three rounds of 10 is plenty. All 50 questions on this page run about an hour.

How do you run MLK Day trivia respectfully at work?

Run it as a short knowledge check after a reading, a recording or a talk, not as a contest: no prizes, points table or winners. Let anyone volunteer to host, and pair it with service. Our guide on how to celebrate MLK Day at work has 15 ideas for that.

Can someone host MLK or Black history trivia for us?

Yes. Black History Trivia & Games is a 60-minute hosted session with a live host on Zoom, Teams, Google Meet or Webex, and many teams book it for February. For MLK week, a facilitated DEI workshop fits the day. Hosted sessions book about 2 weeks ahead, and you can reserve online with a 50% deposit or ask for a free quote.

Where are the answers checked?

Each answer was checked against the King Institute at Stanford, the National Park Service and the Congressional Research Service's report on honors Congress authorized for Dr. King.

MLK Day
Trivia
January

MLK Day trivia: 50 questions and answers about Dr. King and the holiday

50 MLK trivia questions with answers, in five rounds of 10: Dr. King's early life, the Montgomery bus boycott, Birmingham to Selma, his honors and the holiday itself, to run as a short learning check after a reading or talk. Every answer is checked against the King Institute at Stanford and the National Park Service.

KraftyLab TeamUpdated Nov 202610 min read

Start the questions or have a host run it

A diverse office team conferring over answer sheets during a trivia round at a conference table on a winter day

MLK Day 2027 is Monday, January 18. These questions work best as a short knowledge check after a reading, a recording or a talk about Dr. King's life: the group learns together, with no prizes, points table or winners. Each round of 10 takes about 10 minutes, so one round fits the team meeting that week. Close with a service project or the plan for February.

Play MLK trivia on a shared screen

Pick a round, share your screen and reveal each answer when the teams are ready. Every question is also listed below with its answer folded away, for reading aloud or printing.

Early lifeQuestion 1 of 10 · Score 0

In which city was Martin Luther King Jr. born?

Say your answer out loud, or write it down, then check it.

Round 1: MLK trivia about his early life

Atlanta, school, family and the first church he led. A gentle opening round most teams get through quickly.

1. In which city was Martin Luther King Jr. born?Easy
Show the answer
Atlanta, Georgia (at 501 Auburn Avenue)
2. On what date was Dr. King born?Easy
Show the answer
January 15, 1929
3. What first name was Dr. King given at birth?Medium
Show the answer
Michael (his father later changed both of their names to Martin Luther)
4. How old was King when he started classes at Morehouse College in 1944?Medium
Show the answer
15
5. Which Pennsylvania seminary awarded King a bachelor of divinity in 1951?Hard
Show the answer
Crozer Theological Seminary (he gave the valedictory address)
6. Which university awarded King a doctorate in systematic theology in 1955?Medium
Show the answer
Boston University
7. What was Coretta Scott studying in Boston when she met King in 1952?Medium
Show the answer
Music (at the New England Conservatory of Music)
8. How many children did Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King have?Easy
Show the answer
Four
9. In 1954, King became pastor of which church in Montgomery, Alabama?Medium
Show the answer
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
10. Which Atlanta church, led by his father, did King return to as assistant pastor in 1960?Medium
Show the answer
Ebenezer Baptist Church

Want someone to lead it?

A live host brings the slides and the pace, so the organizer can take part and remote guests are in the session, not watching it. Black History Trivia & Games is an hour of rounds on Black history and the people who shaped it, made to educate as much as entertain, and many teams book it for February. For MLK week itself, a facilitated conversation fits the day: the two workshops below are one flat fee for the group. Hosted sessions book about 2 weeks ahead and run on Zoom, Teams, Google Meet or Webex.

Get a free quoteReserve online with a 50% deposit, or get a full plan within 24 hours.

Round 2: Montgomery bus boycott and the early movement

From Rosa Parks's arrest to the founding of SNCC. Expect a few hard ones here.

11. Whose arrest on December 1, 1955 led to the Montgomery bus boycott?Easy
Show the answer
Rosa Parks
12. About how long did the Montgomery bus boycott last?Medium
Show the answer
About 381 days, or 13 months (December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956)
13. Which group, formed on the boycott's first day, elected King as its president?Hard
Show the answer
The Montgomery Improvement Association
14. Which court case ended bus segregation in Montgomery when the Supreme Court affirmed it in November 1956?Hard
Show the answer
Browder v. Gayle
15. Which organization of Southern ministers and leaders, formed in 1957, made King its first leader?Medium
Show the answer
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
16. What was the title of King's first book, published in 1958?Hard
Show the answer
Stride Toward Freedom (his account of the Montgomery boycott)
17. Which country did King visit for a month in 1959 to study the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi?Easy
Show the answer
India
18. What name is given to the protest method King practiced: refusing to strike back, even when attacked?Easy
Show the answer
Nonviolence, or nonviolent resistance
19. Which organizer, then working for the SCLC, invited student activists to the April 1960 meeting that formed SNCC?Hard
Show the answer
Ella Baker (the meeting was at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina)
20. What did the letters SNCC stand for?Medium
Show the answer
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Round 3: Civil rights trivia from Birmingham to Selma

The letter, the march and the bridge: the years 1963 to 1965.

21. In April 1963, King wrote a famous letter from a jail cell in which city?Easy
Show the answer
Birmingham, Alabama
22. King's letter from jail answered a published statement by how many local clergymen?Hard
Show the answer
Eight
23. What did King write the first part of that letter on?Medium
Show the answer
Pieces of newspaper (he finished it on paper pads his lawyers brought)
24. What was the full official name of the march held in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963?Medium
Show the answer
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
25. About how many people attended the 1963 March on Washington?Medium
Show the answer
About 250,000
26. Which labor leader, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, first proposed the march?Hard
Show the answer
A. Philip Randolph
27. Which organizer ran the day-to-day planning of the 1963 March on Washington?Hard
Show the answer
Bayard Rustin
28. Which gospel singer performed just before King took the podium at the March on Washington?Medium
Show the answer
Mahalia Jackson
29. Marchers leaving Selma, Alabama in March 1965 crossed which bridge?Easy
Show the answer
The Edmund Pettus Bridge
30. Which federal law followed the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches?Easy
Show the answer
The Voting Rights Act of 1965

A hybrid team in a conference room raising a hand to answer a trivia question while remote coworkers join on the wall screen

Running it for 30 or more people across offices and home desks? A host keeps every group in the session: see our heritage month events and hosted virtual trivia.

Round 4: Martin Luther King Jr. trivia on honors and his final years

The Nobel Prize, Chicago, Memphis and the honors that came after.

31. Which magazine named King its Man of the Year in January 1964?Medium
Show the answer
Time
32. In what year did King receive the Nobel Peace Prize?Easy
Show the answer
1964
33. How old was King when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize?Medium
Show the answer
35
34. What did King do with his Nobel Peace Prize money?Medium
Show the answer
He gave all of it, about $54,000, to the civil rights movement
35. In 1966, King moved into an apartment in which Northern city to campaign for fair housing?Medium
Show the answer
Chicago
36. What was the name of the campaign for economic justice King announced in December 1967?Medium
Show the answer
The Poor People's Campaign
37. Which striking workers did King travel to Memphis to support in 1968?Medium
Show the answer
Sanitation workers
38. What is the title of the speech King gave at Mason Temple in Memphis on April 3, 1968?Medium
Show the answer
I've Been to the Mountaintop
39. Which president awarded King the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977?Hard
Show the answer
Jimmy Carter (Coretta Scott King accepted it)
40. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial's address, 1964 Independence Avenue, honors which law?Hard
Show the answer
The Civil Rights Act of 1964

Round 5: MLK Day trivia about the holiday and the day of service

How the holiday came to be and how it is marked today. A good closing round for the week of MLK Day.

41. MLK Day falls on which Monday in January?Easy
Show the answer
The third Monday
42. Which president signed the bill creating the King holiday on November 2, 1983?Medium
Show the answer
Ronald Reagan
43. In what year was MLK Day first observed as a federal holiday?Medium
Show the answer
1986 (on January 20)
44. Which Michigan congressman introduced the first King holiday bill, four days after King's death?Hard
Show the answer
John Conyers Jr.
45. Which singer released the song “Happy Birthday” to rally support for the holiday?Easy
Show the answer
Stevie Wonder (on his album Hotter Than July)
46. What is the earliest date MLK Day can fall on?Medium
Show the answer
January 15, King's birthday (the latest is January 21)
47. At the MLK Memorial in Washington, D.C., King's figure is carved into a granite block called the Stone of what?Easy
Show the answer
Hope (it stands out from the Mountain of Despair)
48. Which federal agency leads the MLK Day of Service?Medium
Show the answer
AmeriCorps
49. The MLK Day of Service asks people to make the holiday “a day on, not a day” what?Easy
Show the answer
Off
50. Which Atlanta organization did Coretta Scott King found in 1968 as a living memorial to her husband?Medium
Show the answer
The King Center (the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change)

How to run MLK Day trivia at work

A short reading or talk, a reader and small groups. It's a learning check, not a contest. Here's how it works in the office, hybrid and on video.

Learn first. Open with 10 minutes of learning: a short reading, a recorded speech from its official source or a talk. The quiz then checks what the group took in.
Size it. One round of 10 takes about 10 minutes with answers read out. A 30-minute session fits the learning, one or two rounds and a short closing.
In the office. Small groups of four to six, one answer sheet per group, and a reader with this page open. Read each answer aloud and talk through the ones that surprised people.
Hybrid. Mix remote and in-room people in each group, give each group a shared doc for answers, and screen-share the quiz above.
All on video. Send groups of four or five to breakout rooms for each round, or have everyone message answers to the host in chat.
Close with action. End by sharing a local service project, a reading or the plan for February, so the quiz leads somewhere.

Keep it respectful

Invite anyone to host or read, and never ask Black colleagues to lead unless they volunteer.
Treat it as a learning check, not a contest: no prizes, points table or winners, and no party theme or branded giveaways.
Link to Dr. King's speeches at the source instead of pasting long passages; his words are still under copyright.
Offer the quiz as one part of the week, next to service or learning, not the whole observance.

Want the session to go deeper than a quiz? A facilitator can lead an hour on equity at work: see our DEI workshops. For the rest of the day, our guide to celebrating MLK Day at work covers service, learning and remote teams. February comes next: our Black History Month trivia and Black History Month events are ready when you are.