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(b. November 20, 1924, Brooklyn, N.Y.), the first African American woman
elected to the U.S. Congress and the first to campaign for the presidency,
known for her incisive debating style and uncompromising integrity.
January 3, 2005- Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and an outspoken advocate for women and minorities during seven terms in the House, died near Daytona Beach, friends said Sunday. She was 80.
Quotes:
I know I will survive, I'm a fighter.
Of my two "handicaps" being female put
more obstacles in my path than being black.
Tremendous amounts of
talent are being lost to
our society just because
that talent wears a skirt.
Service is the rent we pay for
the privilege of living on this earth.
More Selected Shirley Chisholm Quotations...
Shirley Chisholm is widely considered one of the foremost female orators in the United States. With a character that she has described as "unbought and unbossed," Chisholm became known as a politician who refused to allow fellow politicians, including the male-dominated Congressional Black Caucus, to
deter her from her goals. In 1969 her first statement as a congressperson before the U.S. House of Representatives reflected her commitment to prioritizing the needs of the disadvantaged, especially children: she proclaimed her intent to "vote No on every money bill that comes to the floor of this House that provides any funds for the Department of Defense."
While Chisholm advocated for black civil rights, she regularly took up issues that concerned other people of color such as Native Americansand Spanish-speaking migrants. She also delivered important speeches on the economic and political rights of women and fearlessly criticized the Nixon Administration during the Vietnam War.
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was the oldest of four girls born to parents who had immigrated from the West Indies, and who barely subsisted on their wages from factory work and housecleaning. When Chisholm was three, her parents, desiring a better life for their daughters, sent Shirley and her sisters to Barbados to be reared by their maternal grandmother. For Chisholm island life seemed like a paradise, and she received an excellent education in Barbados's British school system. At the age of ten Chisholm returned to Brooklyn, where she was an outstanding student. Later, at Brooklyn College, she majored in sociology and joined the debating society, an experience that would influence her cut-and-thrust oratory style. She also served as a volunteer in the Brooklyn chapter of the National Urban League and in the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where she debated minority rights.
'For the Equal Rights Movement'
In 1949, after graduating from college, Chisholm attended evening classes at Columbia University, earning a master's degree in child education. Meanwhile, she taught at a Harlem nursery school, and later acted as
supervisor of the largest nursery school network in New York. It was through administering to hundreds of children, the majority of them African American and Puerto Rican, that Chisholm learned the executive skills that served her so well in the political arena. In 1953, as a key member of the Seventeenth Assembly District Democratic Club, she waged a successful political campaign to elect an eminent black lawyer to the municipal court.
Democratic Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm of New York takes her oath of office.
Chisholm's political career took off in 1964, when she won by a landslide her campaign for the New York State Assembly. As an assemblyperson (1965-1968), she authored legislation that instituted SEEK (Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge), a program that provided college funding to disadvantaged youths, and successfully introduced a bill that secured unemployment insurance for domestics and day-care providers. In 1968 Chisholm won a seat in the House of Representatives, where she served on a number of committees, including Education and Labor, and campaigned for a higher minimum wage and federal funding for day-care facilities. She also secured federal grants for a number of Brooklyn-based enterprises that benefited disadvantaged communities. In 1972 she became the first African American woman to campaign for the presidency, (The first woman ever to run for president was Victoria Woodhull, in 1872, on the Equal Rights Party platform.) running as "a candidate of the people." In doing so she paved the way for others like herself who, as she said in her autobiography The Good Fight, "will feel themselves as capable of running for high political office as any wealthy, good-looking white male."
Since retiring from Congress in 1982, Chisholm has remained active as a political figure, an educator, and a spokesperson for women's rights. She has held several university teaching positions and during the 1980s was a critical asset to Jesse Jackson'scampaigns for the presidency. She also created and currently chairs the increasingly powerful National Political Congress of Black Women, and has served on the Advisory Council of the National Organization for Women.
Ms. Chisholm is one of the many black women who have been denied their rightful place in the history books.
Fortunately, a young filmmaker named Shola Lynch recently completed a documentary on Ms. Chisholm that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival a few weeks ago. The film, Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed, features interviews with writer Amiri Baraka, feminist Susan Brownmiller and former Black Panther leader Bobby Seale. Ms. Chisholm herself is interviewed, and the archival footage from the 1970s brings her campaign to life.
In reflecting on her defeat in 1972, Ms. Chisholm remarks in the film: "There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price."
Obscurity is too high a price for Ms. Chisholm to have to pay.
Film Review: 'Chisholm '72 -- Unbought and Unbossed'
Thu January 29, 2004 12:09 AM ET
By James Greenberg
PARK CITY, Utah (Hollywood Reporter) - With all the experimentation going on with the documentary form, it's reassuring to see the traditional formula of newsreel footage and talking heads work as well as it does in "Chisholm '72 -- Unbought and Unbossed."
As the first black woman to run for president, Shirley Chisholm makes a spirited subject. The Realside Prods. film could be a worthy candidate for select theatrical release in late summer during the political conventions.
Rather than seeming dated, Chisholm's moxie and commitment is a refreshing antidote to the opportunism and cynicism that rules the political roost today. There is almost a wistfulness to what Chisholm dared as a first-term congresswoman from Brooklyn in 1972. It's not only a historical document but an inspiring tale of someone who made a difference.
The American political landscape is littered with Don Quixotes tilting against windmills and vested interests. Chisholm told people that "if you can't support me, get out of my way." She was physically attacked three times while on the campaign trail, and talking about it today she still gets teary-eyed.
Not surprisingly, she met a lot of resistance, even among the Congressional Black Caucus and emerging women's rights groups. Gloria Steinem thought she was good, but McGovern was great. And to this day, Chisholm believes her black colleagues in Congress failed to rally around her because she was a woman.
The story climaxes at the Democratic National Convention, where Chisholm had hoped to influence the platform. The whole point of the campaign was not to win but enter the struggle and pave the way for the future. Now retired and living in Florida, Chisholm wants to be remembered as a woman who fought for change in the 20th century. Mission accomplished, but not finished.
Shirley Chisholm being buried |
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