Who was?

I caught by chance a minute of Jeopardy! yesterday. New episode? Old? No idea. Here’s what got my attention:

The category: American Poetry. The answer, for $800:

Poems by him include “Crowing Hen Blues,” "Po’ Boy Blues,” & “The Weary Blues”

No one buzzed.

See also Black Jeopardy Misses, a YouTube compendium of similar fails. For instance:

The category: That Is the Question. The answer, for $800:

In 1851 in Akron, Sojourner Truth delivered a speech called this 4-word rhetorical question

No one buzzed.

And I’m reminded of a moment in the documentary I Heard It Through the Grapevine (dir. Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley, 1982), in which Hoyt Fuller tells James Baldwin about a moment from the classroom, when he asked a student to read a quiz question aloud:

“And she says, ‘I have no idea who Malcolm Ten was.’”