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Hello Internet, I'm your husband-host Travis McElroy. And I'm your wife-host Teresa McElroy. And you're listening to Shmanners. It's extraordinary etiquette. For ordinary occasions, hello, my dove. Hello, dear. For a second, I had it in my head that I said and you're listening to and then you would say Shmanners and I'm like, wait, that's not it. That's not how that works. How are you? I'm great. We just got back from the gym. We did and you took a shower and you smell nice. Thank you. It's my purple shampoo. It smells very minty. I didn't take a shower.

Because unlike most people, I just get red like a tomato. Yeah, it doesn't really sweat. You have zero. You have no pores. That must be it. Which is always weird. But our trainer sometimes looks at me and says, do you need a break? Because my face is all red. So what are we talking about today? Well, so today we have a biography. And we are talking about a fine-upstanding. What how's the song go in bi-by-birds?

Pretty fine-upstanding. Patriotic. Healthy, normal, American person. Okay. Yeah. Her name is Barbara Mae Watson. Okay. I don't know this person. Well, I'm excited because she was a lawyer, a diplomat, an ambassador, a teacher, a business person, and the first black person to serve as assistant secretary of state. Okay. Yeah.

So like I said, fine-upstanding, patriotic, healthy, normal. Yeah. That all sounds very important to you. Yeah. And I'm just going to say it and listen to his bold, but I'm just going to say more important than me. Maybe has contributed a little bit more to history than I have so far. I don't know. Was she in Trolls World Tour? I can emphatically say no. Okay. Okay.

So Watson was born in New York City, November 5th, 1918, the oldest child of James and Violet Watson, both immigrants from Jamaica. Okay. Cool. Cool. Immigrants to get the job done. Yeah, that's it. Yes. Hamilton. Yeah. I think that that was in everybody's. I'm on a kick. I'm on a kick. I want to name every song in the Broadway lexicon. Okay. Is there any way that Barbara relates to Phantom of the Opera? Did she ever attend a mascara?

I don't think so. No, darn it. So her parents had very impressive careers as well. Her father was the first black judge elected in New York State. Her mother was one of the founders of the National Council of Negro Women, which is a non-profit organization founded in 1935 with the mission to advance opportunities and quality of life for black women, their families, and their communities. And it is still in operation today. Awesome.

I know, right? That's not like 90 years. I don't even tell this can be one of those biography episodes, or I just spend like 90% of it going, what cool? Whoa. Awesome. Really? Wow.

I can't believe we haven't heard about this person before. Yeah, that's just just assumed that as an underlying, like, undercurrent, the whole thing.

Her brother James also became a judge, and she's cousins with very successful entrepreneur Jay Bruce Ellen and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Wow. Okay. A very prestigious family, I would say. Indeed. So she attended Barnard College and got her bachelor's in 1939. And during that time, she was also the first black woman to participate in the school's Greek games. What do you think those are?

It's the fraternity games. It's the competition where the fraternities compete against each other. Is that it? No. No. I mean, that's what one would think. I thought it was. It is a campus wide athletic competition. Oh, okay. That actually is more prestigious. I honestly thought you were like, she was the first black woman to participate in the end, like, flip cup. And they were there in like, toga races.

No. So it is freshmen and sophomores compete against each other in neoclassical inspired games, like dance, discous throwing, hurtling, hoop rolling, torch races, and chariot races. I'm lying fighting. I mean, not that one. Okay, not that one. Okay, God, I got it.

Graduated in 1939, went to New York law school, where she not graduated third in her class in 1962. Wait, what?

Right. She not graduated because there's a huge gap in there and Miss Barbara was working. Okay, wait. So she, wait, I'm confused. So she went to law school, but didn't graduate. She didn't graduate until 1962. She went to law school in 1939. Okay. Okay. And then she graduated in 1962.

She time travel. No, she had, she worked in between there. She attended law school. Okay. Here's what happened. After graduating from Bernard, she worked as an interviewer for the United Siemens service. Okay.

She did that 43 to 46 until she along with a Jamaican commercial artist, Edward Branford and stylist Mary Yarbo co-founded the first licensed black modeling agency. Okay.

Branford models. Okay. She taught etiquette and charm school courses at the Academy is modeling school and taught young girls how to appear perfectly poised for their potential shoots. Okay, a lot of good alliteration in there too, which are very happy, perfectly poised.

Indeed. So she and Edward work together and then Branford founded a advertising agency. And so in 1948 Watson took over the modeling area, right? And then served as director until 1956 when she closed down both the agency and the modeling school.

Can I just say if you're going to run a modeling agency, also running an ad agency seems a little bit monopoly, but I'm like, foreign of like, oh, you know who we should get for this one of our own people. Yeah, that's absolutely indeed.

And then 1958 to 59. She worked as the student activities coordinator at Hampstead Hampton Institute and then did her law degree. Okay.

Nice. Yeah. So she got a lot of stuff there in between.

After she got her law degree, she was appointed as assistant attorney in the New York City Law Department. That's 1963. Okay. She went on to work as executive director of New York City Commission on the United Nations from 64 to 66.

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