Barbara Christian (b. December 12, 1943, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands; d. June 25, 2000 Berkeley, California) was an author and professor of African-American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Among several books, and over 100 published articles, Christian was most well known for the 1980 study Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition.
Taught at the City College of the City University of New York (1965—1972)
Christian helped establish the African-American Studies Department at UC Berkeley
She was the first African-American woman to be granted tenure at UC Berkeley (1978)
Awarded the City of Berkeley's highest honor, the Berkeley Citation 07.12.00 - Barbara Christian, professor and pioneer of contemporary American literary feminism, dies at age 56