Podcasts by Witness History: Black history
Listen to and download our programmes
Further podcasts by BBC World Service
Podcast on the topic Geschichte
All episodes
'I just wanted to be white' from 2020-11-03T08:58
In the immediate aftermath of World War Two, thousands of children were born to white German women and black American soldiers who were stationed in Allied-occupied Germany. The mixed-race infants ...
Listen
Nasa's pioneering black women from 2020-10-23T14:32
Usually it is the names of astronauts that people remember about the space race. But less celebrated are the teams of people working on how to put a rocket into orbit. Only in recent years have sto...
Listen
Viv Anderson - first black England footballer from 2020-10-22T10:00
In November 1978, Viv Anderson became the first black footballer to play a full England international. The son of Jamaican immigrants, Anderson had to endure racial abuse from opposing fans to achi...
Listen
The Battle of Lewisham from 2020-10-09T09:00
In August 1977, the racist National Front organisation planned to stage a march into Lewisham in South London at a time of high racial tension in the area. The National Front activists were met by ...
Listen
When Nelson Mandela went to Detroit from 2020-09-23T08:30
Just months after his release from prison in 1990 the South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela toured the USA. One of the eight cities he went to visit was Detroit. Benita Barden has been spea...
Listen
The unlawful death of Christopher Alder from 2020-07-07T08:00
The black former soldier choked to death in handcuffs on the floor of a British police station in 1998. CCTV footage taken from the police station showed the 37 year-old father of two gasping for ...
Listen
Three Strikes Law from 2020-06-12T07:50
One man's experience of the controversial US law that saw thousands locked up for life. Under the law in California, a third conviction for a felony offence would lead to a life sentence. At times ...
Listen
Rodney King and the LA riots from 2020-06-11T08:30
People took to the streets of Los Angeles in fury after police, who had assaulted a black driver called Rodney King, were acquitted in 1992. His assault had been captured on video and played repeat...
Listen
Black basketball pioneers - Texas Western from 2020-06-10T08:30
In 1966, an all-black team went head-to-head with an all-white team for the National College Basketball championship - one of the biggest prizes in American sport. To much surprise, the African-Ame...
Listen
The 16th Street church bombing from 2020-06-09T08:30
Four young black girls were killed in a racist attack on a church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The 16th Street Baptist Church was a centre for civil rights activists in the city. One of the gir...
Listen
Brown v the Board of Education from 2020-06-08T08:30
In 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. The case was a turning point in the long battle for civil rights in America. In ...
Listen
Ann Lowe - African American fashion designer from 2020-05-29T08:30
Ann Cole Lowe designed Jackie Kennedy's wedding dress in the 1950s. As a black woman working in high fashion she was a groundbreaking figurein New York. Sharon Hemans has been speaking to Judith ...
Listen
The Miami riots from 2020-05-18T08:30
After four white policemen were acquitted of killing a black man - Miami rioted. Citizens took to the streets on the night of May 17th 1980. The unrest lasted for three days. 18 people died, hundre...
Listen
The last survivor of the transatlantic slave trade from 2020-04-21T08:30
The last surviving person to be captured in Africa in the 19th century and brought to United States on a slave ship, has been identified as a woman called Matilda McCrear, who died in Alabama in 19...
Listen
London's first black policeman from 2020-02-03T08:50
Norwell Roberts joined the Metropolitan police in 1967. He was put forward as a symbol of progressive policing amid ongoing tensions between the police and ethnic minorities in the capital. But beh...
Listen
The first self-made female millionaire from 2020-01-30T09:30
Madam C. J. Walker was the first ever self-made female millionaire. She was born to former slaves in the USA and was orphaned at seven but against all the odds she went on to create her own busines...
Listen
The story of George Stinney Jr from 2020-01-16T09:30
How a 14-year-old boy became the youngest person to be executed in the USA during the 20th century. George Stinney Jr was sent to the electric chair in 1944. He had been tried for the murder of two...
Listen
Desmond's: A sitcom that changed Britain from 2020-01-02T09:30
Desmond's was the most successful black sitcom in British TV history. It ran on Channel 4 for over five years, attracting millions of viewers. Trix Worrell, the man who wrote it, believes that Des...
Listen
Black GIs during World War Two from 2019-12-16T09:30
For much of World War Two African-American soldiers were relegated to support roles and kept away from the fighting. But after the Allies suffered huge losses during the Battle of the Bulge, they w...
Listen
The killing of Amadou Diallo from 2019-12-12T09:30
When police in New York shot a young immigrant 41 times in 1999, thousands of people took to the streets to protest. But Amadou Diallo's mother Kadiatou wanted her son to be remembered for the way ...
Listen
Britain's World War Two 'Brown Babies' from 2019-10-11T08:00
The US first began sending troops to the UK in 1942 to help in the war effort. It is estimated that at least two million American servicemen passed through the UK during World War Two and tens of t...
Listen
The Bristol bus boycott from 2019-10-10T08:30
In 1963 a small group of British black activists started a pioneering protest against racism within the local bus company in Bristol. It had specified that it did not want to employ black bus drive...
Listen
The Notting Hill riots from 2019-10-09T08:30
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 ...
Listen
The first black woman MP in Britain from 2019-10-08T08:30
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 A...
Listen
Learie Constantine - fighting racism in the UK from 2019-10-07T08:30
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 f...
Listen
Free breakfast with the Black Panthers from 2019-09-18T09:30
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 whic...
Listen
Nina Simone moves to Liberia from 2019-08-29T09:30
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...
Listen
Britain's first female black headteacher from 2019-03-08T09:30
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 profe...
Listen
Photographing Martin Luther King and His Family from 2018-08-14T08:00
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...
Listen
The "Godfather of Gospel Music" from 2018-01-29T00:10
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 ...
Listen
The First Kwanzaa from 2017-12-26T08:50
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 ...
Listen
The Unsung Hero of Heart Surgery from 2017-12-13T09:00
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...
Listen
The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks from 2017-03-02T09:00
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 c...
Listen
Roots - The TV Series from 2017-01-19T08:50
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 sla...
Listen
Bob Marley Survives Assassination Attempt from 2016-12-02T08:05
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 hea...
Listen
A Black GI in China from 2016-11-01T08:58
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 instea...
Listen
Voting Against the War on Terror from 2016-09-20T07:50
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...
Listen
The Dance Theatre of Harlem from 2016-08-24T07:55
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 ...
Listen
Race Riots in Liverpool from 2016-07-25T07:50
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...
Listen
Black in the USSR from 2016-06-20T08:00
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 U...
Listen
Marcus Garvey from 2016-05-17T07:50
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 Marcu...
Listen
Haile Selassie In Jamaica from 2016-04-18T07:50
In April 1966, Ethiopia's emperor Haile Selassie made a spectacular arrival in Jamaica. It was his first and only visit to the birthplace of the Rastafarian movement which revered him. A quarter of...
Listen
The Back to Africa Movement from 2016-02-23T08:50
At the end of the 19th Century, African-Americans in the southern states of the US faced a wave of political and racial violence. Lynchings reached a peak. Black people were prevented from voting a...
Listen
The Death of Walter Rodney from 2015-06-11T07:50
In June 1980, the Guyanese opposition leader and academic, Dr Walter Rodney, was killed in a bomb explosion. He was one of the leaders of a movement trying to bridge the racial divide in Guyana’s p...
Listen
Dorothy Mulkey - US Fair Housing Campaigner from 2015-05-26T07:00
In 1967, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling which effectively outlawed discrimination in the American housing market. The case was brought by Dorothy Mulkey, a Californian woman who had been prev...
Listen
Black Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm from 2015-01-29T09:00
In January 1972 Shirley Chisholm became the first major-party black candidate to make a bid for the US Presidency. She was also the first black woman elected to Congress. Witness has been speaking ...
Listen
The Scottsboro Boys: A Miscarriage of Justice in the US from 2013-10-17T08:33
In 1931, nine black teenagers were convicted of raping two white girls in the southern US state of Alabama. Eight were sentenced to death by an all-white jury; but after years of campaigning, all ...
Listen
Josephine Baker - Black American Superstar from 2013-10-10T07:50
In 1925 a young black American dancer became an overnight sensation in Paris. Her overtly sexual act soon made her one of the most famous women in Europe. Her name was Josephine Baker - hear from h...
Listen
The Children's Crusade from 2013-10-09T10:30
Birmingham in Alabama was one of the most segregated cities in the USA in 1963. In May that year thousands of black schoolchildren responded to a call from Martin Luther King to protest against seg...
Listen
Mixed race marriage victory in US from 2013-10-08T10:30
In 1958, a mixed-race couple, Mildred and Richard Loving, were arrested and then banished from the US state of Virginia for breaking its laws against inter-racial marriage. Nine years later, Mild...
Listen
Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-ins from 2013-10-07T12:30
On 1 February 1960, four young black men began a protest in Greensboro, North Carolina against the racial segregation of shops and restaurants in the US southern states. The men, who became known ...
Listen
The Freedom Riders from 2013-10-07T10:30
The Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode on buses, testing out whether bus stations were complying with the Supreme Court ruling that banned segregation. Listen to Bernard Lafayett...
Listen
The Mississippi Burning Case from 2013-10-05T18:00
Andrew Goodman was one of the three civil rights workers killed by the Klu Klux Klan in Mississippi in 1964. He and the other two victims, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, had been working on a ...
Listen
John Howard Griffin: Black Like Me from 2013-10-03T08:00
John Howard Griffin, a white journalist, dyed his skin black to experience segregation in America's Deep South. John Howard Griffin wrote a book about his seven week experience. *** Listeners shou...
Listen
Beverly Johnson - Vogue's First Black Covergirl from 2013-10-02T14:00
In 1974 American Vogue put a black model on its cover for the first time. We hear how Beverly Johnson made it to the front of the world's most famous fashion magazine.
Listen
Black Golfer at the US Masters from 2013-10-02T12:00
In 1975, Lee Elder braved death threats to become the first African-American golfer to play at the prestigious US Masters in Augusta. It was one of the last colour barriers in US sport and made hi...
Listen
Jamaica Slave Rebellion from 2013-10-01T16:00
*** Contains descriptions that some listeners may find upsetting *** Enslaved Africans are forced to work in sugar cane fields - the hours are long and there are frequent, brutal punishments. The...
Listen
The Voyage of the Empire Windrush from 2013-10-01T10:00
In 1948 nearly 500 pioneers travelled from the Caribbean on the Empire Windrush. The passage cost £28, 10 shillings. Passenger Sam King describes the conditions on board and the concerns people h...
Listen
The Brixton Riots from 2013-10-01T08:00
In April 1981 the streets of Brixton, south London, erupted into violence. The fighting took part between young members of the black community and the Metropolitan police.
A former rioter...
The Attica Prison Riot from 2013-09-09T07:50
In September 1971 prisoners in a high security jail in the US rose up against their guards taking 42 people hostage. After 4 days of negotiations, armed police retook the jail. By the time the sie...
Listen
I Have a Dream from 2013-08-28T10:51
On August 28th 1963, the American civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, made his historic plea for an end to racial discrimination in the USA. Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he ...
Listen
Muhammad Ali and the Draft from 2013-04-25T08:00
In 1967, the world heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, refused to be indicted into the American military. His decision to follow his conscience and not serve in Vietnam galvanised radicals across t...
Listen
James Brown Concert at the Boston Garden from 2013-04-05T08:00
The soul singer's April 1968 concert was held amid rioting and violence provoked by the assassination of Martin Luther King. But despite the fears of the city authorities, the streets of Boston wer...
Listen
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study from 2013-01-14T09:50
For nearly 40 years, the US government conducted an experiment on a group of African-American men without their knowledge - to see what would happen if their syphilis was left untreated. Photo: U...
Listen