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Wartime Britain’s mixed-race babies
Lucy Bland discusses the childhood experiences of babies fathered by African-American GIs stationed in Britain during the Second World War
During the Second World War, an estimated 2,000 babies were fathered by African-American GIs stationed in Britain. Lucy Bland reveals how these mixed-race children faced discrimination in the streets and ambivalence from the government, and why so many were given up by their mothers.
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Lucy Bland is the author of Britain's ‘Brown Babies’: The Stories of Children Born to Black GIs and White Women in the Second World War (Manchester University Press, 2019)
