logo
episode-header-image
Jun 2021
50m 52s

The Confederate flag and America’s battl...

Bbc World Service
About this episode

In June 2015 an American anti-racist activist climbed a flagpole on the South Carolina state house grounds to take down the Confederate flag. The protest followed the killing of 9 black people at a historic Charleston church by a white supremacist who was pictured holding the flag. We discuss the history of this divisive symbol of America's racist past. Also how life in the Chinese countryside has been dramatically changed by 40 years of migration to the cities. Plus, from the 1980s, a British TV event that shifted attitudes towards victims of rape, East Germany’s iconic Trabant car and the man behind Mindfulness.

Photo Bree Newsome taking down the Confederate flag at the State House in Columbia, SC, on Saturday 27th June 2015. Credit Adam Anderson / Reuters.

Up next
Nov 22
Juan Carlos becomes King of Spain and ending the Bosnian war
<p>Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Mercedes Peñalba- Sotorrío, a senior lecturer in modern European history at Manchester Metropolitan University, England.</p><p>We start with the death of General ... Show More
1 h
Nov 15
Speed of Sound and prosecuting Nazis
<p>Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is aviation historian Dr Victoria Taylor.</p><p>We start with an archive interview of American Chuck Yeager who became the first pilot to fly faster than the speed ... Show More
1h 1m
Nov 8
The largest dinosaur and creating Miffy
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.Our guest is Darja Dankina, who's a palaeontologist from the Natures Research Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania. We start with the discovery of the largest dinosaur ever, uncovered by ... Show More
1 h
Recommended Episodes
Apr 2021
America's Monuments | The Trouble With Confederate Statues | 7
<p>In recent years, there’s been a movement to remove statues of Confederate leaders and other monuments that some see as celebrations of America’s racist history. But does taking down these statues help address the racial inequities that plague our nation to this day? Or is it j ... Show More
38m 6s
Jul 2020
Monumental Conversations
Confederate statues and symbols are being removed all over the country. This is long overdue for some, while others say that it’s a dangerous effort to erase history. Don speaks with the descendants of a Confederate general whose statue was recently toppled as they come to grips ... Show More
26m 5s
Oct 2023
What if the South Won the Civil War?
<p>What if the Civil War had ended differently, with the South seceding from the Union? Would slavery have continued? Would the southern states have continued as a whole? Would any other states have followed suit?</p><br><p>To explore this hypothetical history, Don spoke to Aaron ... Show More
42m 24s
Oct 2023
The Origins of the KKK and its First Death in the 1870s
The Ku Klux Klan was arguably America’s first organized terrorist movement. It was a paramilitary unit that arose in the South during the early years of Reconstruction. At its peak in the early 1870s, the Klan boasted many tens of thousands of members, no small number of them lan ... Show More
39m 10s
Feb 2022
Reconstructed, Ep 1: Birth of a Black Nation
<p>One question has plagued our nation since its founding: will Black people in America ever experience full citizenship?  </p><p>In searching for an answer, Into America is collaborating with the Smithsonian’s <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/" target="_blank">National Museum of A ... Show More
54m 42s
May 2016
The Gettysburg Address
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, ten sentences long, delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg after the Union forces had won an important battle with the Confederates. Opening with " Four score and seven yea ... Show More
48m 55s
May 2023
Reconstruction Era | From the Ashes of War | 1
<p>In the spring of 1865, the United States celebrated the end of four years of Civil War. As American soldiers laid down their weapons, four million formerly enslaved Black people in the South grappled with the daunting task of building new lives as free citizens in a nation sti ... Show More
43m 7s
Oct 2018
Civil Rights - New World A’Comin | 1
<p>President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, freeing the slaves in much of the South. But the road to freedom—true freedom—would take generations longer for most black Americans.</p><p>In this new six-part series, we investigate their stru ... Show More
38m 5s