GOAT TALK – SHIRLEY CHISHOLM
Shirley Anita Chisholm was born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn in 1924 to parents who had emigrated to the United States from the West Indies. Her father worked in a factory that made burlap bags and her mother was a domestic worker and a seamstress. They sent Chisholm, the eldest of four daughters, to be educated in Barbados and she later returned to New York and attended Brooklyn College, graduating in 1946 with honors. She went on to get her master’s degree in childhood education at Columbia and worked for several years in day care centers in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Ms. Chisholm got her political start in the local Brooklyn Democratic Club, helping to raise money for candidates. In 1964, she became a candidate herself and was elected to the New York State Assembly, representing Bedford-Stuyvesant. As the first black woman to hold an Assembly seat in New York State, she made her mark fighting for programs to assist domestic workers and underprivileged students.
Four years later, in 1968, Ms. Chisholm became the first black woman elected to the United States Congress when she defeated James Farmer, a nationally recognized civil rights leader and founder of the Congress of Racial Equality. After being assigned to the House Agricultural Committee, a post she considered irrelevant to her urban constituency, Chisholm observed that “apparently all they know here in Washington about Brooklyn is that a tree grows there.” In a highly unusual move, she was reassigned to the Education and Labor Committee, where she was able to use her expertise in child education.
But she wasn’t done there. In 1972, Ms. Chisholm made a historic campaign for the presidency. That’s right. She was the first African American to do so.
As the first person of color to run, in addition to being a woman, she was largely overlooked by the media and the political establishment. However, she was allowed to participate in a televised debate with Senator George McGovern and former Vice President Hubert Humphrey, but only after winning a federal court order under the equal time provisions of the Federal Communications Commission.
Perhaps it’s not entirely surprising that people failed to give a whole lot of credence to this black woman from Brooklyn who herself didn’t seem to truly believe in her chances for success. “I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds,” she later wrote, “to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.” What is surprising, however, is that Shirley Chisholm wasn’t doing too badly. According to the polls in February of 1971, Chisholm was getting 35 percent of the vote among black Independents and black Democrats, and overwhelming support from women voters, regardless of race. This led the Harris pollsters to conclude, “Ms. Chisholm must now be considered a distinct threat to Mayor Lindsay, Senator McGovern, and former Senator Eugene McCarthy in vying for the liberal and left-of-center vote.” When Chisholm withdrew from the race after the Democratic convention, she had secured 151 electoral votes.
Though Ms. Chisholm is largely remembered for her role as the first black woman to run for president, that is just a small part of her legacy. In the New York State Assembly, she secured unemployment insurance for domestic workers, and lobbied for financial assistance for poor students. She was also a founding member of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the Congressional Black Caucus. As a Congresswoman, Chisholm helped to pass Title IX, which prohibits gender discrimination in the funding of education and related programs. She proposed successful legislation to extend minimum wage requirements to domestic workers. She was a leading advocate for the establishment of a national holiday in recognition of Martin Luther King, Jr., and submitted legislation behind this every year beginning in 1969 until her retirement from Congress in 1983. The law was finally adopted in 1985.
Shout out to a true GOAT.
