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Interviews with people who were there at key moments in black and civil rights history
On 18 June 1964, black and white protesters jumped into a ‘whites only’ swimming pool at a motel in St Augustine, in Florida. Photos of the...
On 17 June 2015, white supremacist Dylann Roof attended a bible group at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Car...
In 1959, Todd Matshikiza composed the score for King Kong, it was South Africa’s first musical with an all-black cast and it opened to criti...
In March 1965, hundreds of peaceful civil rights protesters in Selma were brutally beaten by Alabama state troops. They had been marching to...
In 1936, Haile Selassie came to Bath in the west of England to escape Mussolini and the fascists who had invaded Ethiopia. He bought a prope...
In 1987, an unknown 18 year-old Somalian model called Waris Dirie walked into the studio of renowned British photographer Terence Donovan. S...
In August 2002, the remains of an indigenous South African woman called Sarah Baartman were returned to South Africa after almost 200 years...
Major Charity Adams was the first African-American woman to lead a World War Two battalion. It was known as the Six-Triple-Eight (6888). The...
In 1973, a fashion show was held in France which became known as the Battle of Versailles, a duel between designs from modern America and th...
Rosa Parks was brought up in Alabama during the Jim Crow era, when state laws enforced segregation in practically all aspects of daily life....
Lucha Reyes was one of Peru’s greatest singers. She was born into poverty in 1936 and fought terrible health problems and racism throughout...
In May 1986, 16-year-old Charlotte Mensah went to work in the UK’s first luxury Afro-Caribbean hair salon, Splinters. In London’s glamorous...
On 15 December 2013, South Africa held the funeral of Nelson Mandela who led the struggle in defeating apartheid and became the country’s fi...
Sixty years ago, there was a boycott of local bus services in the English city of Bristol. The bus company had specified that it did not wan...
The Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury in England on 22 June 1948 with 802 people on board from the Caribbean. The former passenger liner's a...
In 1979, The Museum of Modern Art, (MoMA) purchased photographs from an African-American woman for the first time in its history. Ming Smith...
In 1995, Octavia E Butler became the first author to receive a MacArthur “genius” award for science fiction writing. From a young age she dr...
To mark the 90th anniversary of the BBC World Service, we trace the development of the Caribbean Service. Its beginnings go back to the earl...
In 1985, Carol Taylor wrote a survival guide for young black men in the Unites Stated who were stopped by the police. Her son, Laurence Lega...
On 30 January 1959, the late Trinidadian activist Claudia Jones held a Caribbean party in St Pancras Town Hall in London, planting the seeds...
In 1972, a low-budget Jamaican film and its legendary soundtrack helped popularise reggae music in the world. Ben Henderson speaks to one of...
In 1962, Nigerian man Phil Magbotiwan opened a brand new nightclub in Manchester, England. In part because of his own personal experiences o...
In March 2022 a law was passed in the United States making lynching a federal crime - nearly 120 years after the first attempts to introduce...
In February 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot dead by a member of a Neighbourhood Watch group who claimed he was acting suspiciously...
On Easter Sunday 1967 the Reverend Albert Cleage renamed his church in Detroit the Shrine of the Black Madonna. He preached that if man was...
In the immediate aftermath of World War Two, thousands of children were born to white German women and black American soldiers who were stat...
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...
In November 1978, Viv Anderson became the first black footballer to play a full England international. The son of Jamaican immigrants, Ander...
In August 1977, the racist National Front organisation planned to stage a march into Lewisham in South London at a time of high racial tensi...
Just months after his release from prison in 1990 the South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela toured the USA. One of the eight cities h...
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 s...
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...
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....
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 pr...
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 centr...
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...
Ann Cole Lowe designed Jackie Kennedy's wedding dress in the 1950s. As a black woman working in high fashion she was a groundbreaking figure...
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 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...
Norwell Roberts joined the Metropolitan police in 1967. He was put forward as a symbol of progressive policing amid ongoing tensions between...
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 a...
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 electr...
Desmond's was the most successful black sitcom in British TV history. It ran on Channel 4 for over five years, attracting millions of viewer...
For much of World War Two African-American soldiers were relegated to support roles and kept away from the fighting. But after the Allies su...
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 mot...
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...
In 1963 a small group of British black activists started a pioneering protest against racism within the local bus company in Bristol. It had...
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 Indi...
In 1987 Diane Abbott became the first black woman elected to the British Parliament. The daughter of first generation immigrants she was one...
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 fam...