A Marriage of Inconvenience: The Persecution of Ruth and Seretse Khama

In 1948, a young white English woman, Ruth Williams, made headline news all over the world. For she had met, fallen in love with, and married Seretse Khama, an African prince and heir to the chieftainship of a tribe of more than 100,000 people--the Bamangwato. At first, the marriage was no more welcome in Africa than in government circles in London. Within a year of their wedding, the young couple had provoked an astonishing series of events that had never been explained.

The British governm...