{"id":58094,"date":"2019-05-18T23:41:11","date_gmt":"2019-05-18T23:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58094"},"modified":"2019-05-18T23:41:49","modified_gmt":"2019-05-18T23:41:49","slug":"thousands-of-mixed-race-british-babies-were-born-in-world-war-ii-and-adoption-by-their-black-american-fathers-was-blocked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=58094","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of mixed-race British babies were born in World War II \u2013 and adoption by their black American fathers was blocked"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of mixed-race British babies were born in World War II \u2013 and adoption by their black American fathers was blocked<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Conversation<\/a>
\n2019-05-16<\/p>\n

Lucy Bland<\/strong><\/a>, Professor of Social and Cultural History
\nAnglia Ruskin University, Cambridge<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
\nOutside Holnicote House<\/a> children\u2019s home, Somerset<\/a>. \u00a9<\/sup>Lesley York<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Around 2.2%<\/a> of the population of England and Wales<\/a> is now mixed race and 3.3%<\/a> are from black ethnic groups. During World War II<\/a>, over 70 years ago, these figures were far lower<\/a>. And so unsurprisingly, life was difficult for the 2,000 or so mixed race babies who were born in World War II to black American GIs<\/a> and white British women.<\/p>\n

They grew up in predominately white localities and experienced significant racism. I have interviewed 45 of these children (now in their seventies), hailing from all over England<\/a>. Their story<\/a> of institutional racism rivals the horrors of the appalling story of the Windrush generation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of the 3m US servicemen that passed through Britain in the period 1942-45, approximately 8%<\/a> were African-American. The GIs were part of a segregated army and they brought their segregation polices with them, designating towns near to American bases \u201cblack\u201d or \u201cwhite\u201d and segregating pubs and dances along colour lines, with dances held for black GIs one evening and whites the next.<\/p>\n

Inevitably, relationships formed between the black GIs and local women and some resulted in what the African-American press referred to as \u201cbrown babies<\/a>\u201d. All these children were born illegitimate because the American white commanding officers refused black GIs permission to marry, the rationale being that back in the US<\/a>, 30 of the then 48 states had anti-miscegenation<\/a> laws.<\/p>\n

The children grew up in predominately white areas \u2013 the sites where the GIs had been largely based: south<\/a> and south-west England<\/a>, south Wales<\/a>, East Anglia<\/a> and Lancashire<\/a>, where they had little or no black or mixed race role models. Most suffered racism, the stigma of illegitimacy and a confused identity…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around 2.2% of the population of England and Wales is now mixed race and 3.3% are from black ethnic groups. During World War II, over 70 years ago, these figures were far lower. And so unsurprisingly, life was difficult for the 2,000 or so mixed race babies who were born in World War II to black American GIs and white British women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,8,4481,10,20,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-media-archive","category-social-work","category-uk","category-usa","category-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58094"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58102,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58094\/revisions\/58102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}