Inspirational black women
The History Hour10 Feb 2024

Inspirational black women

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service telling stories about inspirational black women.

In 1973, the Battle of Versailles pit up-and-coming American designers using black models against the more traditional French. We hear from Bethann Hardison, one of those black models, about how the capital of couture, Paris, became the stage for this defining moment in the history of fashion.

Professor Adrienne Jones, a fashion expert at the Pratt Insitute in New York, explains the cultural significance of the event, and what changed in the world of fashion afterwards.

Plus, the story of the UK’s first luxury Afro-Caribbean hair salon, Splinters, which opened as recently as the 1980s. Charlotte Mensah, known as the ‘Queen of the ‘fro’, recalls what it was like to work there. Part of her story includes an account racial bullying.

Also, archive interviews tell the story of how Rosa Parks defied racist segregation laws in the United States. It contains outdated and offensive language.

We hear how a Nigerian lawyer took on the country’s Sharia courts to overturn a death sentence.

And the tragic story of Lucha Reyes, one of Peru’s most beloved singers.

Contributors: Bethann Hardison- a model who competed in the Battle of Versailles. Prof Adrienne Jones- from the Pratt Institute in New York. Hauwa Ibrahim- one of the first female lawyers from northern Nigeria. Polo Bances- saxophonist who played alongside Lucha Reyes.

(Photo: Bethann Hardison and Armina Warsuma arriving in France. Credit: Photo by Michel Maurou/Reginald Gray/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images)

Episoder(467)

The Dili Massacre

The Dili Massacre

It is 25 years since Indonesian troops attacked protestors in the East Timorese capital, plus the impact of The Satanic Verses on British society, smuggling endangered birds out of the jungles of South America, a palace burns in Madagascar and the inspiration behind James Bond's theme tune.(Photo: East Timorese activists preparing for the protest that ended in tragedy. Copyright: Max Stahl)

19 Nov 201650min

The Pitcairn Sex Abuse Trial

The Pitcairn Sex Abuse Trial

A mass child sex abuse trial on a remote island in the Pacific that shocked the world, a controversial Kurdish song, the birth of Rolling Stone magazine, men versus computers, and street fighting in San Salvador in the 1980sPhoto: Adamstown, seen in this June 2003 photo of Pitcairn Island (AP)

13 Nov 201650min

Dickey Chapelle - War Reporter

Dickey Chapelle - War Reporter

On this week's programme, how pioneering American woman war reporter, Dickey Chapelle, was killed in Vietnam; plus two very different perspectives on Mao's China, Mexican writer Octavio Paz and the escape which made Harry Houdini's name.PHOTO: Dickey Chapelle during a US Marines operation in 1958 (Credit: US Marine Corps / Associated Press)

5 Nov 201650min

Shell Shock

Shell Shock

World War One veterans describe Shell Shock and Prof. Edgar Jones of Kings College on the psychiatric cost of war; plus Hungary's 1956 uprising, how French intelligence was rocked by the abduction of activist Mehdi Ben Barka, the history of Marvel Comics and London's Big Bang. Photo: French troops shelter during bombardment, 1918. (General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

29 Okt 201655min

The Mayak Nuclear Disaster

The Mayak Nuclear Disaster

One of the world's worst nuclear disasters, the most notorious prison riot in America, Second World War internment in Australia, resistance in apartheid South Africa, and one of Britain's most celebrated artists, Stanley Spencer, through the eyes of his daughters.Photo: The Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant in 2010. Credit: European Pressphoto Agency

30 Sep 201650min

The University of Texas Shooting

The University of Texas Shooting

On 1 August 1966, student Charles Whitman shot dead 14 people and injured another 32 in America's first mass shooting at a university. Plus, the oldest arts festival in the Middle East; how President Reagan smashed the power of the trade unions; and meeting JD Salinger, the reclusive author of "The Catcher in the Rye".PHOTO: Associated Press.

8 Aug 201650min

First CIA coup in Latin America

First CIA coup in Latin America

In this week's programme, we hear personal accounts of two fronts in America's Cold War fight against communism: Guatemala and Russia itself. Plus, the earthquake in China that killed a quarter of a million; riots in the English city of Liverpool; and remembering Picasso in his prime.PHOTO: Army officers opposed to President Arbenz go over a map of the territory on their push to Zacapa and then to Guatemala City, July 1954. (AP Photo)

30 Jul 201650min

Tanzania's Ujamaa

Tanzania's Ujamaa

Socialism in Tanzania, the man who assassinated the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, the crash of the Soviet supersonic jet Concordski, 20 years to build a road and Date Rape(Photo: Tanzanian women cultivating the soil. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

4 Jun 201650min

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