After the war, despite his extensive training, Braithwaite could not find work in his field and, disillusioned, reluctantly accepted a job as a schoolteacher at St George-in-the-East Central School (now the Mulberry House apartments) adjacent to the north side of
St George in the East church, in the
Wapping area of the
East End of London. His novel,
To Sir, With Love (1959), was based on his experiences there. It won an
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.
To Sir, with Love was adapted into
a film of the same title, starring
Sidney Poitier. Although the film was a box-office success, many critics, and Braithwaite himself, considered it too sentimental. He also objected to the main character's mixed-race romance being given lower prominence in the film version. In 2007 he said on a BBC Radio 4 programme,
To Sir, with Love Revisited, written and presented by
Burt Caesar: "I detest the movie from the bottom of my heart." While he was writing his book about the school Braithwaite turned to social work. It became his job to find
foster homes for non-white children for the
London County Council. This experience resulted in
Paid Servant: A Report About Welfare Work in London, published in the UK in 1962. In 1973 South Africa lifted its ban on Braithwaite's books and he subsequently visited the country. While there he was granted the status of "
honorary white", which gave him significantly more freedom of movement than the indigenous black population but less than the whites, a situation he found detestable. He recorded his experiences during the six weeks he spent in South Africa in his book
Honorary White (London: The Bodley Head, 1975, ). He taught
English studies at
New York University and in 2002 was a
writer-in-residence at
Howard University, Washington, D.C. He spent the 2005–06
academic year as a visiting professor at
Manchester Community College (Connecticut). He also served as the college's
commencement speaker for that year and received an honorary degree. He
turned 100 in 2012, and on a visit to Guyana while serving as the patron of the Inter-Guiana Cultural Festival, he was given a national award, the Cacique Crown of Honour, by then-President
Donald Ramotar. In 2013, Braithwaite attended the first live performance of the stage version of
To Sir, With Love. The play was written by
Ayub Khan Din as part of
Royal & Derngate, Northampton's
Made In Northampton theatrical season. The play was directed by Mark Babych and starred
Ansu Kabia in the title role and
Matthew Kelly. This was the first theater-adoption of the book. ==Personal life and death==