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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Barbara Blake-Hannah

My Black skin got me sacked from British TV. That’s why I spend my life fighting racism

Barbara Blake-Hannah pictured in 1968 with Jane Probyn and Eamonn Andrews, her colleagues at Thames Television's Today programme.
Barbara Blake-Hannah pictured in 1968 with Jane Probyn and Eamonn Andrews, her colleagues at Thames Television's Today programme. Photograph: Larry Ellis/Getty Images

Fifty years ago, when racists called and wrote daily letters to ITV’s Today programme in 1968 telling the corporation “Get that nigger off our screens”, they were speaking about me, the first visibly Black TV journalist in Britain.

It resulted in me losing my job, having been in post just nine months. The official excuse at the time was, “She didn’t fit in with the programme.” But this was not what I was told when the producer showed me the complaint letters, and then the door.

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