The ‘Brown Babies’ who were left behindPosted in Articles, Biography, History, Social Work, United Kingdom, United States, Women on 2019-05-20 16:37Z by Steven |
The ‘Brown Babies’ who were left behind
BBC News
2019-05-17
 Many of the babies were put in children’s homes, such as Holnicote House in Somerset Leslie York |
When Babs Gibson-Ward was born in 1944, her mother’s navy officer husband did not question whether he was her father.
“He honestly believed I was his child, I think because my complexion at that time was very fair. It took six months for it to change,” she said.
She was one of 2,000 mixed race babies born to white British women and black American GIs during World War Two.
The children were dubbed “Brown Babies” by the media and many had troubled childhoods.
When Mrs Gibson-Ward’s skin darkened, her mother’s lie was revealed – her real father was a black US Airforce engineer…
…”Many British people had never seen a black person before. They were charming and less arrogant than the white officers.
“They met women at dance halls or pubs, on evenings which were designated ‘blacks only’,” Lucy Bland, Professor of Social and Cultural History at Anglia Ruskin University, said.
But relationships were forbidden and their children were often kept secret. Most had never shared their stories until Prof Bland found 45 of them for her book, titled Britain’s Brown Babies…
Read the entire article here.