Black History Month 2022: Shirley Chisholm

1. Shirley Chisholm is known as the first black woman elected to the United States Congress in 1968.
2. Chisholm was the first black person to seek a major party’s nomination for the U.S. presidency when she ran for the Democratic Party nomination in 1972.
3. Chisholm represented New York’s Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn and when initially elected, was assigned to the House Agriculture Committee, which she felt was irrelevant to her urban constituency. In an unheard-of move, she demanded reassignment and got switched to the Veterans Affairs Committee. By the time she left that chamber, she had held a place on the prized Rules and Education and Labor Committees.
4. Chisholm was born in Brooklyn as the eldest of four daughters of parents who were immigrants from Barbados.
5. She received her B.A. degree from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1946 and she earned her M.A. degree from Columbia University in 1952 while working as a nursery school teacher, director of a child care center and later as an educational consultant with the city’s child care department.
6. In 1964, she began her political career as a member of the New York State legislature as an assemblyperson. After four years there, she was elected on the Democratic ticket to serve in the U.S. Congress. She served two terms and in 1972 ran in the New York Democratic primary for president of the United States, establishing another first for black women.
7. In the later years of her life, Chisholm became a sought-after speaker on the lecture circuit.
8. In 1974, Chishom introduced a bill to extend minimum wage laws to domestic workers, many of whom were Black.
9. Chisholm later sponsored a bill extending and amending the school lunch program and introduced an amendment that made it possible for 5 million more children to access free lunches, according to the New York Times.
10.  introduced a bill that would have funded high quality childcare for all families. It passed the House but was vetoed by President Richard Nixon.
11. Chisholm championed a guaranteed minimum annual income for families, a Farmworkers Bill of Rights.
12. Chisholm championed a bill to amend asylum procedures and a bill that would have returned areas of the Black Hills National Forest to the Sioux Nation for 10 years.

“My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn’t always discuss for reasons of political expediency.”

—Shirley Chisholm

“If I can help to bring about the change and move in that direction, I will have made my contribution.”

—Shirley Chisholm

“Service is the rent that you pay for room on this earth.”

—Shirley Chisholm

"If they don't give your a seat at the table, bring a folding chair."

- Shirley Chisholm