11 May 2007: Ban Beaten

The US Postal Service has been forced to back down in a row over topless postcards.

Last year, Jean-Claude Baker, a New York restaurateur, decided to promote his business by sending out postcards featuring a picture of the woman who raised him.

The woman in question was the late pin-up queen, Josephine Baker, and the picture, dating from 1926, showed the legendary African-American entertainer posing topless in a feather costume.

The US postal service decided the picture was pornographic and refused to carry the cards.

However, after pressure from the New York Civil Liberties Union, the US postal service has now agreed to deliver them.

Josephine Baker was born in America in 1906, took French citizenship in 1937 and fought in the resistance during World War II. In the 1950s, to protest against racial segregation, she formally adopted 12 children of various races, who she described as her "Rainbow Tribe". She died in 1975 and is buried in Paris. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Baker)