Know Your Heritage

Hosts

Omar McClinton (1987) Jeff Coopwood (1990) Hosea Sanders (199?-2000) John Conrad (2001) Dorothy Tucker (2002) Greg-Alan Williams (2003, 2005-2010) Dwayne Bryant (2004)

Broadcast

Syndicated (Chicago area): 1987-200? WLS ABC 7: 200? WBBM CBS 2: 200? WPWR UPN/MNT 50: 200?-2007 WCIU 26: 2008-2010

Packager

Central City Productions

Know Your Heritage was a quiz bowl for Chicago's high schools. This show has questions primarily based on African- American history. It is filmed at the Harold Washington Cultural Center in Chicago's Bronzeville area.

After 28 years, it was expanded to a national quiz bowl for the entire United States with two spinoffs Black College Quiz and later Hispanic College Quiz.

Gameplay

Two teams consisting of four students (each team from one high school in Chicago) competed in a yearly tournament to win $1,000 college scholarships as well as trips to Walt Disney World as rewards for their knowledge of black history.

Questions were presented in multiple choice format with four possible answers, with point values in varying amounts. The team that rang in first would have the chance to answer it and had to give the letter and answer; giving the letter alone was not acceptable.

The questions ranged from primarily ethnic history, with a few grab-bag categories thrown in.

Next was the huddle up round where a question was asked and up to 10 answers were shown and the teams would have one minute to pick which of the answers were correct and were awarded based on number of correct guesses.

The final round consisted of how many points each team was willing to wager. They would do so during the second-to-last commercial break. One player from each team would walk up to the host's podium and the question was presented. They would have a time limit in which to put the answer down; when time expired, both players would close their notebooks (laptops in newer episodes).

This series is broken into different sections like most quiz bowls.

• "Chicago Challenge" (Introduced 2008) - All the high schools competed in 10 minute intervals, usually two matches per episode, until 16 teams remained.
• "Chicago Survivors" - The 16 high schools competed against each other until eight were left.
• "Chicago's Elite" - Quarterfinals match, in which the remaining eight competed until four winning teams were left.
• "Chicago's Noble Four" - Semifinals match, where the two winning teams advanced to the finals.
• "Who's Who in Chicago" - The finals round where the two winning teams competed for the grand prize stated above.

Special "All Star" episodes aired at the end of each season. Versions included the losing two teams from the final four, students versus faculty from the high school of the winning team, or two teams of Chicago celebrities.

Music

Main (1990) - "Night-Lines" by Dave Grusin
Speed Up Round cue (1990) - "Run Don't Walk (A)" by Richard Myhill (KPM Music)
Main (2007-2008) - "1 Thing" by Amerie

Inventor

Omar McClinton & Central City Productions

Rating

Spin-Offs

• Black College Quiz - National tournament for historically black universities
• Hispanic College Quiz - National tournament for historically hispanic universities

Links

• Official Site
• Central City Productions Site
• MySpace profile

Full Episodes

• 1990 Episode
• 1990 Quarterfinals Episode
• 1990 Semifinals Episode
• 1990 Finals Episode
• 2007 Episode Part 1 Part 2 Part 3