Growing Out
Black Hair and Black Pride in the Swinging 60s
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Growing Out
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Narrated by:
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Bernardine Evaristo
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Barbara Blake Hannah
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
Travelling over from Jamaica as a teenager, Barbara's journey is remarkable. She finds her footing in TV, and blossoms. Covering incredible celebrity stories, travelling around the world and rubbing shoulders with the likes of Germaine Greer and Michael Caine - her life sparkles. But with the responsibility of being the first black woman reporting on TV comes an enormous amount of pressure, and a flood of hateful letters and complaints from viewers that eventually costs her the job.
In the aftermath of this fallout, she goes through a period of self-discovery that allows her to carve out a new space for herself first in the UK and then back home in Jamaica - one that allows her to embrace and celebrate her black identity, rather than feeling suffocated in her attempts to emulate whiteness and conform to the culture around her.
Growing Out provides a dazzling, revelatory depiction of race and womanhood in the 1960s from an entirely unique perspective.
A title in the Black Britain: Writing Back series - selected by Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo, this series rediscovers and celebrates pioneering books depicting black Britain that remap the nation.
'A gorgeously exuberant account. . . writing that is natural and vivacious . . . a fascinating and hugely enjoyable read.' Bernardine Evaristo, from the Introduction
© Barbara Blake Hannah 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
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Critic reviews
Arriving in the UK with dreams and ambition, she quickly learned that success often came at the cost of conformity. Straightening her hair, softening her accent, and adopting the mannerisms of whiteness, she worked hard to fit into a world that rarely made space for authentic Black voices. Her image was polished, her professionalism undeniable — yet underneath the surface lay a dissonance between who she was and who she felt pressured to become.
Years later, this tension reached a breaking point, and what followed was a courageous and transformative decision: to return to Jamaica — not simply as a geographic homecoming, but a spiritual and cultural one. There, she reconnected with the richness of her heritage, embraced her natural hair and identity, and found belonging in a Rastafarian lifestyle that honored freedom, authenticity, and rootedness.
This is more than a story of leaving and returning. It is a testament to the inner cost of assimilation and the power of reclaiming one's identity. It speaks to the experience of many Black women in diaspora — forced to navigate a world that often asks them to shrink or shape-shift — and the healing that comes with finally choosing to be whole.
Poignant, raw, and ultimately uplifting, her journey challenges us to question the systems that prize sameness over diversity and to celebrate the radical act of self-acceptance.
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