@_1_iceprincess: For decades, Georgia Tann was praised for finding homes for unwanted children. The horrifying truth was that some of those children had never been unwanted at all. They had been taken. Beginning in the 1920s, Tann ran the Memphis branch of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society and built a lucrative adoption operation. Children were taken from vulnerable families, records were altered or destroyed, and mothers could be deceived or pressured into surrendering their babies. Children were then placed with adoptive families, sometimes for substantial fees. One of those children grew up to become Ric Flair, one of the most famous professional wrestlers in history. Born in Memphis in 1949, Flair appears in early records under different names, including Fred Phillips. He passed through the Tennessee Children’s Home Society before being adopted by Richard and Kathleen Fliehr and raised in Minnesota. Flair later confronted the disturbing circumstances surrounding his adoption, even calling the opening chapter of his autobiography “Black Market Baby.” He was just one child in a much larger scandal. Tann’s organization handled thousands of children. Investigators eventually uncovered financial irregularities, questionable adoptions and missing or destroyed records. But Tann never faced trial. As authorities closed in, she died of cancer in 1950. Her organization collapsed soon afterward. The damage outlived her. Parents spent decades wondering where their children had gone. Adoptees grew old searching for identities that had been deliberately obscured. Georgia Tann claimed she was giving children new lives. For some, she first had to erase the lives they already had. #GeorgiaTann #RicFlair #WomensHistory #AdoptionHistory #AmericanHistory

Ice_304

Open In TikTok:

Region: US

Sunday 20 September 2026 16:43:10 GMT