Inspirational black women

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2024

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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 It contains outdated and offensive language.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)

Transcript

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0:00.0	In 1969, a plan to show support for an anti-racism protest turned the lives of 14 promising
0:07.0	black student athletes upside down.
0:09.8	Amazing sports stories from the BBC World Service tells their story.
0:14.0	Search for Amazing Sports Stories, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
0:18.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson
0:29.2	the past brought to life by those who were there. This week black women who've left their mark on history, including
0:36.0	the story of a heroic lawyer standing up for a woman sentenced to death by stoning in Nigeria.
0:42.1	The religious leaders in my country started saying,
0:45.0	you see, we say she's anti-Islam, she's anti-Sharia,
0:48.0	she's been paid by the West to destroy Islam.
0:51.0	Also a woman who made her mark in London on the world of Afro
0:54.3	hair styling. It was the likes of Dyna Rors to Janet Jackson to
0:58.6	Moorish Stewart, you name it like I remember I was quite friendly with Marley's kids and from
1:04.8	America's South how the Rosa Parks bus ride changed history. They questioned
1:10.1	me about why I refused to give up the seat and when I told him I didn't believe I
1:16.2	should have to give up the seat they told me I was under arrest. That's coming up later in the
1:20.7	podcast but before that we're going back to an event in
1:23.5	1973 that became known as the Battle of Versailles. This was a defining moment in the
1:30.0	world of fashion when multicultural American haute-cojure took on the established
1:35.2	European fashion houses in their own backyard. Jane Wilkinson has been hearing
1:40.1	the story of a groundbreaking black bottle who found herself at the heart of that battle.
1:47.0	Buffeted by Carnaby Street, subverted by Fifth Avenue, nevertheless Paris still conducts herself as the world's fashion capital.
	...

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