Esuantsiwa Jane Goldsmith

Citizen of Change: Student activist to Ghanaian princess and global influence 

Esua (Jane) Goldsmith was the first Black female student elected as President of the Students’ Union back in 1975. 

Admitting to being “your number one dungareed, dangly ear-ringed activist”, she was President of the Anti-Apartheid and Women’s Liberation Groups as well as Union Vice-Chair. 

The first minority ethnic woman to chair the Fawcett Society, Goldsmith is a consultant to voluntary organisations nationally and internationally. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws in 2015. 

She now uses her Ghanaian name Esuantsiwa, (Esua for short). Her recently published memoir ‘The Space Between Black and White’ looks back at her time in Leicester and charts her journey to discover her African roots, where she was astonished to discover she was Ghanaian royalty.