Witness: Black History Collection

Informações:

Synopsis

Interviews with people who were there at key moments in black and civil rights history

Episodes

  • The Notting Hill riots

    09/10/2019 Duration: 08min

    In August 1958 Britain was shocked by nearly a week of race riots in the west London district of Notting Hill. The clashes between West Indian immigrants and aggressive white youths known as Teddy Boys led to the first race relations campaigns and the creation of the famous Notting Hill Carnival. Using voices from the BBC archives Simon Watts tells the story. Photo: Street scene in Notting Hill at the time the race riots broke out in 1958. Credit: Getty Images.

  • The first black woman MP in Britain

    08/10/2019 Duration: 09min

    In 1987 Diane Abbott became the first black woman elected to the British Parliament. The daughter of first generation immigrants she was one of only four black MPs elected that day. In 2015 Diane Abbott spoke to Farhana Haider about her journey into the political history books. Photo: Diane Abbott in 1986. Copyright: BBC

  • Learie Constantine - fighting racism in the UK

    07/10/2019 Duration: 08min

    The great West Indian cricketer, lawyer and member of the House of Lords took a London hotel to court when it refused to let him and his family stay there in 1943. Susan Hulme brings us his story from the BBC archives. Photo: Sir Learie Constantine outside Westminster Abbey in 1966. Credit: Douglas Miller/Keystone/Getty Images.

  • Free breakfast with the Black Panthers

    18/09/2019 Duration: 09min

    The Black Panther Party hit the headlines in the late 1960s with their call for revolution. But they also ran a number of "survival programmes" to help their local communities - the biggest of which was a project providing free breakfasts for schoolchildren. Reverend Earl Neil was one of the organisers of the first Free Breakfast for Children programme at St Augustine's Church in Oakland, California. He speaks to Lucy Burns. (IMAGE: Shutterstock)

  • Nina Simone moves to Liberia

    29/08/2019 Duration: 10min

    The great African-American jazz singer Nina Simone moved to the Liberian capital Monrovia in September 1974. Simone was famous for her vocal support for the civil rights movement in the USA as well as for songs like I'm Feeling Good, Mississippi Goddam and I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, and she was invited to the West African republic by her friend the singer Miriam Makeba. Lucy Burns speaks to Nina Simone's friend James C Dennis Sr. Picture: Nina Simone performs on stage at Newport Jazz Festival on July 4th 1968 in Newport, Rhode Island (David Redfern/Redferns)

  • The murder of black teenager Emmett Till

    26/08/2019 Duration: 09min

    A white woman from Mississippi, whose false accusation led to the lynching of Emmett Till, has died aged 88. Emmett Till, an African-American teenager from Chicago, was brutally murdered in America's deep south in August 1955. His death was one of the key events that energized the American civil rights movement. An all-white jury acquitted the two white suspects. Farhana Haider has been listening through interviews with some of Emmett's family, to tell the story of the young boy who became an icon in the struggle against racism in America. (Photo: Emmett Till lying on his bed in Chicago, in 1955. Credit: Getty Images)

  • Britain's first female black headteacher

    08/03/2019 Duration: 08min

    Yvonne Conolly was appointed head of Ringcross Primary school in North London in 1969. She had moved to the UK from Jamaica just a few years earlier and quickly worked her way up the teaching profession. She faced racist threats when she first took up the post but refused to allow them to define her relationship with the children she taught. Photo: Yvonne Conolly in a classroom. Copyright: Pathe.

  • Photographing Martin Luther King and His Family

    14/08/2018 Duration: 09min

    In 1969 photo journalist Moneta Sleet became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism. He won for the black and white image of Coretta Scott King the widow of Martin Luther King taken at the funeral of the murdered civil rights leader. Farhana Haider has been speaking to Moneta Sleet's son Gregory Sleet about his father's remarkable career capturing many of the images that defined the struggle for racial equality in America. Photo: Moneta Sleet's Pulitzer Prize winning photo of Coretta Scott King and daughter Bernice. Credit. Getty

  • The "Godfather of Gospel Music"

    29/01/2018 Duration: 09min

    Thomas A Dorsey is credited with developing Gospel music into a global phenomenon. He started his own musical career in jazz clubs and blues bars, but personal tragedy led him back to church, and inspired hundreds of Gospel songs that transformed the genre. Rebecca Kesby has been listening to archive recordings of Thomas A Dorsey and his singing partner Willie Mae Ford Smith, and speaking to Professor Albert J Raboteau from Princeton University. (PHOTO: Thomas A. Dorsey - 1982. Courtesy of National Endowment For Arts/Humanities/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock. Credit REX)

  • The First Kwanzaa

    26/12/2017 Duration: 09min

    In December 1966, a group of Black activists in Los Angeles created the winter holiday Kwanzaa to try to reclaim their African heritage. It's now celebrated by millions across the US. Lucy Burns speaks to Terri Bandele, who attended the first Kwanzaa celebrations aged 11. Picture: Children at the first Kwanzaa celebration - courtesy of Terri Bandele (on right)

  • The Unsung Hero of Heart Surgery

    13/12/2017 Duration: 09min

    The African-American lab technician, Vivien Thomas, whose surgery helped save the lives of millions of babies but whose work went unrecognised for years. Claire Bowes has been listening to archive recordings of Vivien Thomas describing his long partnership with Dr Alfred Blalock, the man solely credited with inventing an operation in 1944 which helped manage a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. (Photo: Vivien Thomas, US Surgical Technician, 1940) (Audio: Courtesy of US National Library of Medicine)

  • The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks

    02/03/2017 Duration: 09min

    In 1951 cells taken from an African American woman suffering from cancer were found to be unique because they carried on reproducing endlessly in the laboratory. Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer in 1951. Cultures from her cells have since been used to provide medical breakthroughs but as Farhana Haider reports, Henrietta Lacks was never asked if her cells could be used in medical research. (Photo: Henrietta Lacks. Copyright: Lacks Family)

  • Roots - The TV Series

    19/01/2017 Duration: 08min

    The epic mini-series about slavery in the USA hit TV screens in January 1977. Based on a novel by Alex Haley it imagined the lives of his ancestors who had been brought to the US from Africa on slave ships. It revolutionised perceptions about African-Americans and their history. Ashley Byrne has spoken to Leslie Uggams who played the character Kizzy in the series. (Photo: Actors LeVar Burton, Todd Bridges and Robert Reed in Roots. Credit: Alamy)

  • Bob Marley Survives Assassination Attempt

    02/12/2016 Duration: 09min

    In December 1976 unidentified gunmen tried to kill Bob Marley at his home in Kingston, Jamaica. The legendary reggae singer miraculously survived with just light injuries. Mike Lanchin has been hearing from Nancy Burke, one of Marley's friends and neighbours, who was trapped inside the house as the gunmen stormed in, guns blazing. Photo: Bob Marley, 1970s (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

  • A Black GI in China

    01/11/2016 Duration: 08min

    In November 1950, Clarence Adams, an African-American soldier fighting in the Korean war, was captured by the Chinese Red Army. He was held in a prisoner of war camp until the war ended. But instead of returning home, Adams and 20 other GIs chose to settle in China. Rob Walker has been speaking to his daughter, Della Adams. (Photo: Clarence Adams and his Chinese wife, Liu Lin Feng, courtesy of the family)

  • Voting Against the War on Terror

    20/09/2016 Duration: 08min

    Just three days after the 9/11 attacks on America, Congress gave the President the power to order military action against any person, organisation or country suspected of involvement in the attacks - without needing Congressional approval. Witness speaks to Congresswoman Barbara Lee, the only member of the legislature to oppose the new powers. Photo: Barbara Lee in 2002. Credit: Getty Images News.

  • The Dance Theatre of Harlem

    24/08/2016 Duration: 08min

    In August 1969, Arthur Mitchell founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem - the first classical ballet company to focus on black dancers. Virginia Johnson, now the organisation's director, was a founder member. (Photo: The Dance Theatre of Harlem, circa 1970. Virginia Johnson pictured back row, third from left. Credit: Marbeth)

  • Race Riots in Liverpool

    25/07/2016 Duration: 08min

    In July 1981 race riots broke out on the streets of Liverpool. It was the first time that British police used CS gas to control civil unrest in mainland Britain. Witness has been hearing from a man who took part in the riot. (Photo: Lines of police with riot shields face a group of youths during riots in the Toxteth area of Liverpool, July 1981. Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

  • Black in the USSR

    20/06/2016 Duration: 09min

    Robert Robinson, a Jamaican born engineer, was recruited to work in the USSR from a factory in Detroit in 1930. Having had his US citizenship revoked, he spent 43 years unable to leave the Soviet Union. Dina Newman tells his story, using BBC archive. (Photo: Robert Robinson in the 1920s. Source: BBC archive)

  • Marcus Garvey

    17/05/2016 Duration: 09min

    In 1916 Marcus Garvey arrived in the US and began a movement for black pride. His dream was that black people would live independently of whites in a new empire in Africa. Photo: August 1922 Marcus Garvey is shown in a military uniform as the "Provisional President of Africa" during a parade on the opening day of the Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World in Harlem, New York City. (Credit: AP Photo/File)

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