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

the past brought to life by those who were there. This week the attempted assassination of

George Wallace during the 1972 American presidential election.

He realized he'd been hit.

He told me later he said I turned my head to the left and kept my eyes closed to make a possible second gunman think that I was dead.

Plus the violent aftermath of Iran's 2009 presidential election.

Alexander Hamilton, the man behind the musical, and...

She said, Jean, you look so wonderful and I thought she's noticing, I'm thin.

And then she said, when are you do?

The remark that kicked off a multi billion dollar industry.

But first we're going to focus on race in the United States for the first half of this

podcast starting with an event which proved to be a turning point in the long battle for civil

rights in America.

In May 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that the

segregation of public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It

meant that black children had the right to be taught alongside white children.

Pahana Hayther has been speaking to Cheryl Brown Henderson, whose father, Oliver Brown,

brought the class action case against his local board of education.

Public schools were the choice of weapon.

Society in general was in fact the target.

And it absolutely began waging war on this idea that African American citizens wouldn't have all the

rights and privileges afforded other citizens.

...