The first African-American Congresswoman, Shirley
Chisholm represented a U.S. House of Representatives
district centered in Brooklyn, New York. First elected in
1968, Chisholm was catapulted into the national limelight
by virtue of her race, gender, and an outspoken personality
that she balanced with deft skill as a political insider. Four
years later, in 1972, she campaigned for the Democratic
presidential nomination. From her seat on the powerful
Rules Committee, “Fighting Shirley,” as she was known,
moved into Democratic leadership and advocated for
increased federal spending and expanded programs to help
aid low-income and working-class Americans. “I am the
people’s politician,” she once told the New York Times. “If
the day should ever come when the people can’t save me,
I’ll know I’m finished. That’s when I’ll go back to being a
professional educator.”1
Shirley Chisholm was born Shirley Anita St. Hill on
November 30, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York. She was
the oldest of four daughters of Charles St. Hill, a factory
worker from Guyana, and Ruby Seale St. Hill, a seamstress
from Barbados. For part of her childhood, Chisholm
lived in Barbados on her maternal grandparents’ farm and
received a British education while her parents worked during the Great Depression to settle the family in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood in Brooklyn. The most
apparent manifestation of her West Indies roots was the
slight, clipped British accent she retained throughout her
life. She attended public schools in Brooklyn and graduated
with high marks. Chisholm attended Brooklyn College
on scholarship and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in
sociology in 1946. She married Conrad Q. Chisholm, a
private investigator, in 1949; they later divorced. From
1946 to 1953, Shirley Chisholm worked as a nursery school
teacher and then as the director of two daycare centers.
Three years later, she earned a master’s degree in early
childhood education from Columbia University. She served
as an educational consultant for New York City’s division of
daycare from 1959 to 1964. Chisholm was heavily involved
in Democratic clubs in Brooklyn in the 1950s and 1960s,
including the Bedford-Stuyvesant Political League and the
Unity Democratic club. In 1964, Chisholm was elected to
the New York state legislature; she was the second African-American woman to serve in Albany. In 1977, she married
Arthur Hardwick Jr., a New York state legislator.2
A court-ordered redistricting—that carved a new
Brooklyn congressional district with a slight Black majority and a large Puerto Rican population out of Chisholm’s
Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood—convinced her to run
for Congress. The influential Democratic political machine,
headed by Stanley Steingut, declared its intention to send
an African-American candidate from the new district to
the House. In the primary, Chisholm faced three African-American challengers: civil court judge Thomas R. Jones,
a former district leader and New York assemblyman; Dolly
Robinson, a former district co-leader; and William C.
Thompson, a well-financed state senator. Thompson
received the endorsement of the Steingut machine, which
usually guaranteed the candidate a primary victory.
Chisholm, however, received the support of community
organizers with whom she had worked for more than a
decade. Chisholm roamed the new district in a sound
truck that pulled up outside housing projects while she
announced: “Ladies and Gentlemen . . . this is fighting
Shirley Chisholm coming through.” Chisholm capitalized
on her personal campaign style. “I have a way of talking
that does something to people,” she noted. “I have a theory
about campaigning. You have to let them feel you.” In the
primary in mid-June 1968, Chisholm defeated Thompson,
her nearest competitor, by about 800 votes in an election
characterized by light voter turnout.3
In the general election, Chisholm faced James Farmer,
who ran as the candidate of both the Republican Party and
the Liberal Party. Farmer was one of the principal figures
of the civil rights movement, a cofounder of the Congress
of Racial Equality, and an organizer of the Freedom
Riders in the early 1960s. The two candidates held similar
positions on housing, employment, and education issues,
and both opposed the Vietnam War. Farmer charged that
the Democratic Party “took [Black voters] for granted and
thought they had us in their pockets. . . . We must be in a
position to use our power as a swing vote.” Farmer focused
on Chisholm’s gender, arguing that “women have been in
the driver’s seat” in Black communities for too long and
that the district needed “a man’s voice in Washington,” not
that of a “little schoolteacher.” Chisholm, whose campaign
motto was “unbought and unbossed,” met that charge
head-on, using Farmer’s rhetoric to highlight discrimination
against women and to explain her unique qualifications.
“There were Negro men in office here before I came in five
years ago, but they didn’t deliver,” Chisholm countered.
“People came and asked me to do something . . . I’m here
because of the vacuum.” Chisholm portrayed Farmer, who had lived in Manhattan, as an outsider and used her fluent
Spanish to appeal to the growing Hispanic population in
the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The deciding factor,
however, was that more than 80 percent of the district’s
registered voters were Democrats. Chisholm won the
general election by a resounding 67 percent of the vote.4
Chisholm’s freshman class included two African
Americans of future prominence, Louis Stokes of Ohio
and William Lacy “Bill” Clay Sr. of Missouri, and boosted
the number of African Americans in the House from six to
nine, the largest total at that time. Chisholm was the only
new woman to enter Congress in 1969.5
Chisholm did not receive a warm welcome in the
House because of her refusal to abide by long-standing
House expectations for first-term Members to fly under
the radar. “I have no intention of just sitting quietly and
observing,” she said. “I intend to focus attention on the
nation’s problems.” She did just that, criticizing the Vietnam
War in her first House Floor speech on March 26, 1969.
Chisholm vowed to vote against any defense appropriation
bill “until the time comes when our values and priorities
have been turned right-side up again.” She was assigned
to the Committee on Agriculture, a decision she appealed
directly to House Speaker John W. McCormack of
Massachusetts, bypassing Ways and Means Committee
Chairman Wilbur Daigh Mills of Arkansas, who oversaw
Democratic committee appointments. McCormack told her
to be a “good soldier,” at which point Chisholm brought
her complaint to the Democratic caucus and the press. She
was reassigned to the Veterans’ Affairs Committee which,
though not one of her top choices, was more relevant to
her district’s makeup. “There are a lot more veterans in my
district than trees,” she quipped.6
Chisholm was on the Veterans’ Affairs committee
during the 91st and 92nd Congresses (1969–1973).
From 1971 to 1977, she served on the Committee on
Education and Labor, having won a place on that panel
with the help of Thomas Hale Boggs Sr. of Louisiana,
whom she had endorsed as Majority Leader. She also served
on the Committee on Organization, Study, and Review
(known as the Hansen Committee), which recommended
reforms for the selection of committee chairmen that the
Democratic Caucus adopted in 1971. In the 94th Congress
(1975–1977), Chisholm was elected assistant secretary of
the Democratic Caucus, and from 1977 to 1981, she served
as secretary of the Democratic Caucus. She eventually left her Education Committee assignment to accept a seat on
the Rules Committee in 1977, becoming the first Black
woman—and the second woman ever—to serve on that
powerful panel. Chisholm also was a founding member of
the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in 1971 and the
Congressional Women’s Caucus in 1977.7
As a legislator, Chisholm prioritized educational and
labor policies that aided African Americans, women, and the
working class and poor. She joined New York Representative
Bella Savitzky Abzug in cosponsoring legislation to increase
federal funding for and oversight of childcare centers.
She also opposed President Richard M. Nixon’s proposed
guaranteed minimum annual income for families, arguing
that the plan’s proposed income was not adequate to meet
the needs of a family, nor did the legislation provide “day
care, job training, and job development which will be
necessary if the family assistant plan is to work.” She was a
fierce defender of federal assistance for education. In 1975,
Chisholm successfully added an amendment to a national
school lunch bill to expand participation by increasing the
family income of students eligible for free or reduced lunch.
She helped lead her colleagues in overriding President
Gerald R. Ford’s veto on the measure. Chisholm said she did
not view herself as “an innovator in the field of legislation.”
In her efforts to address the needs of the “have-nots,” she
often chose to work outside the established system. At times
she criticized Democratic leadership in Congress as much as
she did the Republicans in the White House.8
Despite her reputation, not unjustly earned, for
independence, Chisholm was willing to form coalitions
and build connections with powerful lawmakers in the
House. In 1973, Chisholm was a leading proponent of
an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
that increased the minimum wage and brought domestic
workers, a profession that disproportionately employed
women of color, under minimum wage regulations. Her
colleagues applauded Chisholm for her behind the scenes
work on behalf of the legislation. Chisholm insisted that
one of her strengths was in bringing legislative factions
together. “I can talk with legislators from the South, the
West, all over,” she said. “They view me as a national figure
and that makes me more acceptable.” Chisholm gained the
trust of her colleagues and was rewarded with a spot on the
influential Rules Committee, whose members were chosen
by the party leader, and she was elected to a position in the
Democratic leadership.9
In 1972, Chisholm declared her candidacy for the
Democratic nomination for President, charging that none
of the other candidates represented the interests of Black
and minority voters or those of Americans living in poverty.
She campaigned across the country and succeeded in getting
her name on 12 primary ballots, becoming as well known
outside her Brooklyn neighborhood as she was in it. At the
Democratic National Convention she received 152 delegate
votes, or 10 percent of the total—a respectable showing
given her modest funding. A 1974 Gallup poll listed her as
one of the top 10 most-admired women in America.10
But while the presidential bid enhanced Chisholm’s
national profile, it also stirred controversy among her House
colleagues. Chisholm’s candidacy split the CBC. Many
Black male colleagues felt she had not consulted them or
that she had betrayed the group’s interests by trying to create
a coalition of women, Hispanics, White liberals, and welfare
recipients. Pervasive gender discrimination, Chisholm
noted, cut across racial lines: “Black male politicians are no
different from white male politicians. This ‘woman thing’ is
so deep. I’ve found it out in this campaign if I never knew
it before.” Furthermore, there were strategic differences,
and many CBC members thought it wiser to support
the frontrunner, South Dakota Senator George Stanley
McGovern, and to try to influence the likely Democratic
nominee. Her presidential campaign also strained relations
with other women Members of Congress, particularly Bella
Abzug of New York, who endorsed Senator McGovern.11
Despite her promotion to influential roles in the House,
Chisholm maintained her independence. In 1978, as a
member of the Rules Committee, she voted against a
Rules package that bundled several energy bills, including
legislation to deregulate the sale of natural gas. Amid
pressure from Speaker of the House Thomas P. “Tip”
O’Neill Jr. of Massachusetts and President James Earl
“Jimmy” Carter, Chisholm refused to support the package.
Chisholm claimed she voted against the rule because higher
rates caused by deregulation would fall hardest on people
with low incomes. Ultimately, the bundle passed the Rules
Committee after another Democrat switched his vote and
supported the rule.12
Even as Chisholm gained influence, she continued to
feel slighted because of her race and gender. As part of
Democratic leadership, she went to a breakfast meeting
every week with President Carter. However, she eventually
stopped attending the meetings, believing the men in the room, especially the President, ignored her. One staffer
explained, “She would come back furious . . . because they
had considered her invisible.”13
Later in her career, Chisholm was a vocal advocate for the
humane treatment of Haitian refugees. In the late 1970s,
human rights violations by the Haitian government and a
poor economy led to an increase in immigration from Haiti
to the United States. In 1979, she and Walter E. Fauntroy,
the Delegate for Washington, DC, founded and co-chaired
the CBC Task Force on Haitian Refugees, later renamed the
Task Force on Haiti. Chisholm was particularly concerned
with refugee policies of both the Jimmy Carter and Ronald
Reagan administrations, which she argued privileged Cuban
refugees fleeing Communist-controlled Cuba over Haitian
refugees. “It is clear to the Congressional Black Caucus
that the [Carter] administration has no intention of ending
its invidious discrimination against Haitians,” Chisholm
explained to her colleagues in a congressional hearing. In
1980, Chisholm proposed legislation to end the inequity
in the federal government’s refugee policy and give Haitian
migrants a better chance of remaining in the United States.14
By 1976, Chisholm faced a stiff challenge from within her
own party primary by a longtime political rival, New York
city councilman Samuel D. Wright. He criticized Chisholm
for her absenteeism in the House, brought on by the rigors of
her presidential campaign, and for what he said was a lack of
connection with the district. Chisholm countered by playing
on her national credentials and her role as a reformer of
Capitol Hill culture. “I think my role is to break new ground
in Congress,” Chisholm noted. Two weeks later, Chisholm
turned back Wright and Hispanic political activist Luz Vega
in the Democratic primary, winning 54 percent of the vote
to Wright’s 36 percent and Vega’s 10 percent. She won the
general election handily with 83 percent of the vote.15
From the late 1970s onward, Brooklyn Democrats
speculated that Chisholm was losing interest in her House
seat. Her name was widely floated as a possible candidate for
several jobs related to education, including president of the
City College of New York and chancellor of the New York
City public school system. In 1982, Chisholm declined to
seek re-election. “Shirley Chisholm would like to have a
little life of her own,” she told the Christian Science Monitor,
explaining that she wanted to spend more time with her
husband, Arthur.16
Other reasons, too, factored into Chisholm’s decision
to leave the House. She had grown disillusioned over the conservative turn the country had taken with the election
of President Ronald Reagan in 1980. Additionally,
she said that many Democrats, particularly African-American politicians, misunderstood her efforts to build
alliances. While her rhetoric about racial inequality
could be passionate, Chisholm’s actions toward the
White establishment in Congress were often conciliatory.
Chisholm maintained that many members of the Black
community did not understand the need for negotiation
with White politicians. “We still have to engage in
compromise, the highest of all arts,” Chisholm noted.
“Blacks can’t do things on their own, nor can whites.”17
After leaving Congress in January 1983, Chisholm
cofounded the National Political Congress of Black Women
and campaigned for Jesse Jackson’s presidential bids in 1984
and 1988. She also taught at Mt. Holyoke College in South
Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1983. Though nominated as U.S.
Ambassador to Jamaica by President William J. Clinton,
Chisholm declined due to ill health. She settled in Palm
Coast, Florida, where she wrote and lectured. Chisholm
died on January 1, 2005, in Ormond Beach, Florida.18
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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