Happy Birthday, Shirley Chisholm!
Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm would be 89 today. Chisholm was the very first African-American woman in the United States Congress.
Born November 30th, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York to Caribbean parents, one from British Guiana and another from Cuba, Shirley became not only the first Black Congresswoman but also the first Black Presidential candidate for the Democratic or Republican Party.
Congresswoman Chisholm was re-elected six more times, until her retirement in 1983.
Unfortunately this awesome states-woman, person, American passed away in 2005.
But luckily we have a good amount of video of her. Here’s one of my favorites from the Visionary Project’s Youtube Page.
Hat tip to the Zinn Education Project.
Related… While searching for an image for this post I came across this awesome photo project from Eunique Jones Photography.
You can order a print of this at http://www.becauseofthemwecan.com/products/shirley-chisholm
Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan were my heroes then and they still are.
Ms Chisholm’s run for the Democratic Presidential nomination didn’t seem shocking to me and she made such good sense. It took me a long time to understand how much she rattled the establishment.
That was my first year to be able to vote.
I registered on my 18th birthday to honor my beloved cousin who died in Viet Nam. He died in 1969, too young to vote for the politicos who sent him to war.
The passage of the 26th amendment came too late for him but not for me.
I ended up working for the McGovern campaign but, to this day,I would rather have had the honor to work to elect Shirley Chisholm President of the United States.