Clara Marguerite Christian

Clara Marguerite Christian
BornMay 1895
Dominica, West Indies
DiedSeptember 1964(1964-09-00) (aged 69)
Bermuda
EducationHampton Institute; Oberlin College
Alma mater
Known forFirst black woman to study at the University of Edinburgh
SpouseEdgar Fitzgerald Gordon
Relatives

Clara Marguerite Christian (May 1895 – September 1964), born in Dominica, was the first black woman to study at the University of Edinburgh[1][2] and went on to be a "highly respected" mother of six.[3] Her university experience speaks to the "double jeopardy" of "navigating both race and gender within whiteness", embodying "the simultaneous invisibility and hyper-visibility" of being a black woman in Edinburgh during the 1910s.[1] She married fellow student Edgar Fitzgerald Gordon, and in the 1920s moved with him to Bermuda, where he joined the medical service, and where she spent the rest of her life.

  1. ^ a b Allman, Esme (6 February 2023). "Clara Marguerite Christian". UncoverED – A collaborative decolonial research project. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  2. ^ "Uncovering University of Edinburgh's black history". RACE.ED. 30 April 2021. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
  3. ^ Rouse-Jones, Margaret; Estelle Appiah (2016). Returned Exile: A Biography of George James Christian of Dominica and the Gold Coast, 1869–1940. Mona, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-9766405885.