Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson.

This week a special collection of first-hand stories looking back at moments of Black British history

including the first of the Windrush generation, citizens of the British

Empire who were brought to rebuild post-war Britain.

Your signs keep Britain white, blacks go home and all that. But we came here to stay and in the long run it's a success story.

We'll also hear from Britain's first black head teacher.

When I was appointed as head teacher, somebody threatened to burn the school down.

Happily, the parents were only interested in whether their children would get a good education.

Plus the battle against racism in 1970s Britain

ending the colour bar in British nightclubs

and how black writers addressed race through comedy. I wrote this for white people. I didn't

write, we know who we are. I wanted to show white people what we were like

rather than the negative that we saw on images of past comedies.

That's all coming up later in the podcast.

October 2020 is designated Black History Month in the UK.

Special events are being held at schools and libraries or public spaces all over the country where possible COVID restrictions allowing.

That's why we too are dipping into our archive to share some of the personal stories of the Black experience in Britain.

And we begin with an historic voyage which has come to be seen as a key moment in the story.

In 1948, the SS Empire Windrush brought immigrants from the Caribbean to the UK.

They were the first of the hundreds of thousands of citizens from the British Empire who were

encouraged to come to Britain to work and to help rebuild the country in the aftermath

of the Second World War. They and their descendants have helped change and shape modern Britain,

...