Book Launch: Britain’s ‘Brown Babies’

Front Cover of Britain's Brown Babies Book

Past event

An opportunity to meet with Lucy Bland, Professor of Social and Cultural History, Anglia Ruskin University, the author of Britain’s ‘Brown Babies’:The stories of children born to black GIs and white women in the Second World War.

An estimated 2,000 babies were born to black GIs and white British women in the second world war. The African-American press named these children ‘brown babies’; the British called them ‘half-castes’. Black GIs, in this segregated army, were forbidden to marry their white girlfriends. Nearly half of the children were given up to children’s homes but few were adopted, thought ‘too hard to place’.

Lucy Bland’s book, which will be available for purchase at the event, looks at the stories of over 50 of these children in the context of the policies and attitudes of the period. It is illustrated throughout and sheds new light on a largely unknown history.

Location: Performance Space, Manchester Central Library

When: Wed, 2 Oct 2019, 17:00-19:00

FREE

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