“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair” she famously used to say. Words that immediately describe a woman with spirit and determination, who fought for education opportunities, food programs for school children, and charged against social injustices throughout her political career and her years spent as a teacher. This is Shirley Chisholm.
Born in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn on November 30, 1924, Chisholm was the oldest of four daughters to immigrant parents, a factory worker from British Guyana and a seamstress from Barbados. She graduated from Brooklyn Girls’ High in 1942 and then from Brooklyn College cum laude in 1946, where she won prizes on the debate team. Although professors encouraged her to consider a political career, she replied that she faced a “double handicap” as both Black and female. At the beginning she, in fact, worked as a teacher in a nursery school, then in 1949, she married Conrad Q. Chisholm, a private investigator and in 1951 she earned a master’s degree from Columbia University in early childhood education . By 1960, she was a consultant to the New York City Division of Day Care. She probably didn’t think that politics for a a woman of color was going to be easy, but slowly decided to pursue it anyway. Ever aware of racial and gender inequality, she became part of the local chapters of the League of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Urban League, as well as the Democratic Party club in Bedford-Stuyvesant and helped to elect Brooklyn’s first African American municipal court judge ! “Fighting Shirley” this is the name they gave her, continued to climb the “hill” and in 1964 she won a seat in the New York State Assembly, where she tried to better the lives of so many people, for example by facing issues like the right for domestic workers to apply for unemployment benefits, job security rights for teacher during pregnancy , and promoting financial assistance for college for poor students .
In 1968 Shirley decided to run for Congress using a slogan that would make her famous and that also became the title of one of her books “Unbought and Unbossed”. Her campaign was characterized by a non-stop tour from neighborhood to neighborhood where she would park in front of Housing Projects and from a sound-truck she would announce:”Ladies and Gentlemen..this is Fighting Shirley Chisholm.”. Fierce! She won and became the first African American woman elected in the US Congress! In Washington DC she introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation fighting for racial and gender equality, the struggle of the poor and the end of the Vietnam War. She was a co-founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971, and in 1972 she even thought she could have a chance to win her party’s nomination as Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the USA. Unfortunately discrimination followed Shirley’s campaign. She was blocked from participating in televised primary debates, and after taking legal action, was permitted to make just one speech. She received no support from her Party organization. But, students, women, and minorities followed the “Chisholm Trail” and supported her. Despite all that and the few funds available for her short campaign, she was part of the ballot in 14 States and received more than 150 votes at the Democratic National Convention! She famously said :” The next time a woman runs, or a black, or a Jew, or anyone from a group that the Country is ‘not ready’ to elect to its highest office, I believe that he or she will be taken seriously from the start… I ran because someone had to do it first.”
Chisholm retired from Congress in 1983. She taught at Mount Holyoke College and co-founded the National Political Congress of Black Women. She died in Florida in 2005. In 2015 President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Shirley Chisholm the Presidential Medal of Freedom, commenting: ” There are people in our Country’s history who don’t look left and right, they just look straight ahead.Shirley Chisholm was one of those people.”
In 2019 a park has been opened and dedicated to her, the Shirley Chisholm State Park . Situated on the northern coast of Jamaica Bay in East New York, a vibrant new green space that opens up the shoreline here for the first time in generations with a landscape of wildflower gardens, native grasslands, cozy beaches, and fishing piers where New Yorkers can hike the trails or rent a bike to ride along the beautiful lanes while admiring the exceptional view of the Manhattan Skyline.
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The miniseries Mrs. America released in April 2020. Other movies soon for release,” The Fighting Shirley Chisholm”. The film will follow Chisholm’s historical run for president in 1972 and will be directed by Cherien Dabis. Another Shirley Chisholm film was announced in February 2021, with Regina King starring as Chisholm .
