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Matthew Syed explores the ideas that shape our lives, making us see the world differently.

Best-selling author Matthew Syed explores the ideas that shape our lives with stories of seeing the world differently.

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Sideways: 21. The Woman Who Brought Down the Mob

21. The Woman Who Brought Down the Mob

BBC Radio 4 - Sideways, 21. The Woman Who Brought Down the Mob

Matthew Syed tells the story of a pioneering lawyer who took on a notorious mobster.

Matthew Syed explores the experience of being “a first”, as he tells the story of the trailblazing black woman lawyer who brought down the most notorious New York city mobster.

On a January night in Manhattan, a team of lawyers is working to crack open an organised crime case. And at the centre of it all, is Eunice Carter - the first black woman to graduate from Fordham Law and the first African-American woman to pass the New York state bar. 

Matthew Syed tells the story of how Carter’s brilliance and meticulous attention to detail blew open a case that would bring down the most notorious mobster - Lucky Luciano - and he explores the experience, the pressure and the role of being "a first". 

With Yun Li and Marilyn Greenwald, authors of the biography Eunice Hunton Carter: A Lifelong Fight for Social Justice; 
Dr. Tsedale M Melaku, sociologist and author of You Don't Look Like a Lawyer: Black Women and Systemic Gendered Racism; 
and Claude M Steele Professor of Psychology at Stanford University.

Presenter: Matthew Syed
Producer: Sandra Labady 
Series Editor: Katherine Godfrey
Researcher: Nadia Mehdi
Music, sound design and mix: Rob Speight
Additional mixing: Alex Portfelix
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