Chisholm, Shirley

Impact on the world

Became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress in 1968, then in 1972 became the first Black American and first woman to seek the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, winning over 150 delegates on the first ballot, a total that remained the most won by a Black candidate until Jesse Jackson's 1984 run and the most won by any woman until Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Life & background

Born in Brooklyn to Barbadian and Guyanese immigrant parents and raised partly in Barbados, Chisholm worked as an educator before entering New York politics, where she co-founded the SEEK program providing higher education pathways for underrepresented students. Elected to Congress in 1968 under the campaign slogan 'Unbought and Unbossed,' she fought for legislation including the Comprehensive Child Development Act, which passed both houses of Congress only to be vetoed by President Nixon. Her 1972 presidential campaign faced resistance not only from white political figures but from the Congressional Black Caucus, who viewed her candidacy as premature, and from some white feminist allies who considered it a lost cause; she nonetheless won delegates in several primaries and notably showed personal kindness by visiting segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace in the hospital after he was shot during his own 1972 campaign, a gesture that drew criticism from some supporters but won her respect from others. She continued to influence later generations of Black women in politics, including Vice President Kamala Harris, who echoed Chisholm's 1972 campaign visually and rhetorically in her own 2020 and 2024 presidential bids; Chisholm was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2024.

Sources

1. NMAAHC (Black Women in the Race for the White House); WTOP News