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 It contains outdated and offensive language.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)

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The Man Who Inspired Britain's First Aids Charity

The Man Who Inspired Britain's First Aids Charity

The first man in Britain to die of AIDS, whale hunting in the South Atlantic in the 1950s, how Norway voted not to join the EU, the American adventurer who inspired the Indiana Jones stories, and Saddam Hussein's draining of Iraq's southern marshes in a bid to flush out his opponents.Picture: Terrence Higgins (Courtesy: Dr Rupert Whitaker)

1 Dec 201850min

The 'Braceros' - America's Mexican Guest Workers

The 'Braceros' - America's Mexican Guest Workers

From 1942 to 1964 the US actively encouraged American farmers to hire tens of thousands of migrant workers to come to work legally from Mexico - they were known as 'braceros'; also, when Moscow invited thousands of foreign students to attend an International Youth Festival in the former USSR; a witness to the funeral of the Duke of Wellington; plus Arafat's final weeks and why was JKF's killer allowed to defect to the Soviets?Photo: A group of Mexican Braceros picking strawberries in a field in the Salinas Valley, California in June 1963 (Getty Images)

24 Nov 201850min

Japanese Murders in Brazil

Japanese Murders in Brazil

How Japanese immigrants in Brazil fell out with each other after the end of the WW2, how Britain helped to get disabled people on the road in the 1940s plus life for Jews under Imperial Russia, the victims of Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s and the American embassy hostage crisis in Tehran.

17 Nov 201850min

The End of World War One

The End of World War One

11th November 1918 saw the end of a four year war that had killed an estimated 20 million soldiers and civilians around the world. We hear eyewitness accounts of the conflict which was fought by many nations, on many continents. The historian, Professor Annika Mombauer joins Max Pearson to discuss the devastating war that changed the world. Photo: Crowds in London celebrate the signing of the Armistice on 11th November 1918 (Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

10 Nov 201851min

When Russia's Richest Man Was Jailed

When Russia's Richest Man Was Jailed

Russia's struggles with big business, when Nigeria struck oil, why Maximilian Kolbe was made a saint, the London arrest of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and Desmond Tutu.Photo: former head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky leaving the courtroom in Moscow, Russia, September 22, 2005. Credit: Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images

26 Okt 201850min

The Nazi Black Book

The Nazi Black Book

The Nazi black book, a list of those to be arrested and dealt with if Germany occupied Britain, privation in wartime and Allied-occupied Austria, racial tension in 1940s Sweden, plus how Britain's Labour party moved against hereditary peers in the House of Lords in the 1990s.

26 Okt 201849min

When Belgium Banned Coca Cola

When Belgium Banned Coca Cola

A strange illness strikes Belgian teenagers, Brazil's forgotten Amazon war, diverting Mount Etna's lava, arguments over aid and trade in the UK, and the 1973 oil crisis.(Photo: A poster saying 'out of order' is stuck on a Coca Cola vending machine in Mouscron, Belgium in 1999. Credit: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images).

20 Okt 201851min

The Street Battle That Rocked Brazil

The Street Battle That Rocked Brazil

In October 1968, students from two neighbouring universities in the centre of São Paulo clashed in a battle which left one dead and many injured. We hear how the so-called 'Battle of Maria Antônia' drove Brazil deeper into a military dictatorship which is still controversial to this day. Plus, a pioneering race relations case in Britain during World War 2, the invention of artificial skin and fashion in the Soviet Union.Photo: the 'Battle of Maria Antonia', São Paulo, 1968. Credit: Agência Estado/AFP

6 Okt 201850min

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