After she served time, a fellow parolee who worked as an exchange operator at the San Francisco Examiner gave her a tip that the newspaper was planning to hire two black reporters to diversify its staff. Ms. Christian thought the opportunity was remote due to her lack of experience, but by spreading the truth she began her path to an apprenticeship role.
“I gave them this song and dance about working on this little piece of black paper that was burned down by Krang,” she told the Tribune.
In 1970, she attended an 11-week summer program for minority students in broadcast journalism at Columbia University. (Gerardo Rivera was her classmate.) Two years later, she was hired by her local NBC affiliate, KNBC. She worked there for six years before she was hired by NBC News.
Her tenure at PBS ended in 1989. Shortly after the network was embroiled in controversy for airing a pro-Palestinian documentary called “Days of Rage.” The film was reportedly partially funded by an undisclosed Arab source, which the producers denied.
In an interview with The New York Times, Christian said he resigned from PBS for other reasons. “This is a no-win situation, so you burn out,” she said. She is “silent when things are going well, and furious when there are questions.”
She eventually settled in Palm Springs, California with DeBardelaben, whom she married in 2016.
In addition to DeBardelaben, Christian has grandchildren. Her daughter, Sunday Barrett, died in 2019.
Early in her career, Christian kept quiet about her life in prison, but eventually decided to open it up to NBC’s sympathetic executives. “The man just looked at me,” she recalled. “He said, ‘I don’t have enough problems. Should I listen to you? Go away.’ I never heard another word.”
