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Gertrude Martin is a former classmate of Irene and Clare’s. The girls grew up together in the Black community on the South Side of Chicago. Like Clare and Irene, Gertrude “passes” for white to some degree in her social life. While Irene passes occasionally for convenience in white spaces, and Clare passes completely in every aspect of her life, Gertrude passes in public for the benefit of her family business, but not in private. Like Clare, Gertrude is married to a white man, but Gertrude’s husband is aware of her race. She passes as white to secure the support of white patrons for their family business. While Gertrude does not need to hide her identity from her husband and children, she nonetheless experiences internalized racism. When she and Clare discuss their shared fears around giving birth to a dark-skinned child, which would alert the public to their families’ interracial heritage, Gertrude’s obvious horror at the thought of having an undeniably Black baby offends Irene. Unlike Irene, who lives most of her life as a Black woman despite possessing physical attributes that allow her to pass, Gertrude and Clare have both aligned themselves with whiteness, to differing degrees, and have in turn grown fearful and ashamed of the hidden parts of their identity.
Gertrude is, however, disturbed by Clare’s decision to marry an aggressively racist man and keep her racial identity hidden from him. While Gertrude understands the social benefits of living one’s daily life as a white person, she isn’t naive about the danger that Clare faces should her husband discover that she is Black. As Irene and Gertrude depart from Clare’s home together after being subjected to a tirade of racism from Jack, Gertrude correctly predicts that when Jack eventually discovers Clare’s secret, Clare won’t like the consequences that befall her.
