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 from the Second World War Siege of

Leningrad the extremely dangerous job of trying to camouflage the city's monuments.

It was dreadful under fire.

The Germans saw that the last reference point for their artillery was disappearing, and they could clearly see us idiots clambering around trying to paint the spire.

How they fired at us.

Plus we have one of the brains behind the board game trivial pursuit and the first

non-stop round the world flight without refueling. I like to think that

the adventure is the essence of life and never turned out an opportunity to do something or go where no man has gone before.

That's coming up later, but before that, as much of the world has been celebrating Christmas,

what are the images of Christmas which most readily spring to mind?

Well, as a result of careful marketing in the predominantly white northern hemisphere,

you're probably thinking of snow-covered villages, log fires, a jolly white man in a red costume, perhaps even

a white Jesus, though there's precious little to suggest that the historical figure of Jesus

would have been white.

Against this tide of images, it's not surprising

that there should be a counterpoint. And so it came to pass that on December the 26th,

1966, the African American holiday of Kwanza was celebrated for the first time.

Invented by civil rights activists as an alternative to Christmas, it's now observed by millions of people.

Lucy Burns has been speaking to Terry Bandeley who was part of the first event.

This is Terry Bandeley. She was there when the idea of Kwanza was first born at Campainer Malana

Corengas House in Los Angeles when Terry was 10.

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