Shirley Chisolm

Shirley Anita Chisholm ( ; ; November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005) was an American politician who, in 1968, became the first black woman to be elected to the United States Congress. Chisholm represented New York's 12th congressional district, a district centered on Bedford–Stuyvesant, for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1972, she became the first black candidate for a major-party nomination for President of the United States, and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's nomination.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, she spent ages five through nine in Barbados, and always considered herself a Barbadian American. She excelled at school and earned her college degree in the United States. She started working in early childhood education and became involved in local Democratic Party politics in the 1950s. In 1964, overcoming some resistance because she was a woman, she was elected to the New York State Assembly. Four years later, she was elected to Congress, where she led the expansion of food and nutrition programs for the poor and rose to party leadership. She retired from Congress in 1983 and taught at Mount Holyoke College while continuing her political organizing. Although nominated for an ambassadorship in 1993, health issues caused her to withdraw. In 2015, Chisholm was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Early life and education

Shirley Anita St. Hill was born to immigrant parents on November 30, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York City. She was of Guyanese and Bajan descent.Brooks-Bertram and Nevergold, ''Uncrowned Queens'', p. 146. She had three younger sisters, two born within three years of her and one later. Her father, Charles Christopher St. Hill, was born in British Guiana before moving to Barbados.Winslow, ''Shirley Chisholm'', pp. 7–8. He arrived in New York City via Antilla, Cuba, in 1923. Her mother, Ruby Seale, was born in Christ Church, Barbados and arrived in New York City in 1921.

Charles St. Hill was a laborer who worked in a factory that made burlap bags and as a baker's helper. Ruby St. Hill was a skilled seamstress and domestic worker who experienced the difficulty of balancing work with raising children at the same time.Winslow, ''Shirley Chisholm'', p. 9. As a consequence, in November 1929, when Shirley turned five, she and her two sisters were sent to Barbados on the '' MS Vulcania'' to live with their maternal grandmother, Emaline Seale. She later said, "Granny gave me strength, dignity, and love. I learned from an early age that I was somebody. I didn't need the black revolution to tell me that." Shirley and her sisters lived on their grandmother's farm in the Vauxhall village in Christ Church, where she attended a one-room schoolhouse. She returned to the United States in 1934, arriving in New York on May 19 aboard the '' SS Nerissa''. As a result of her time in Barbados, Shirley spoke with a West Indian accent throughout her life. In her 1970 autobiography ''Unbought and Unbossed'', she wrote: "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British-style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason." In addition, she belonged to the Quaker Brethren sect found in the West Indies, and religion became important to her; however, later in life, she attended services in a Methodist church. As a result of her time on the island, and despite her U.S. birth, Shirley would always consider herself a Barbadian American.

Beginning in 1939, Shirley attended Girls' High School in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, a highly regarded, integrated school that attracted girls from throughout Brooklyn.Shirley Chisholm, ''Unbought and Unbossed: Expanded 40th Anniversary Edition'', Take Root Media, 2010, p. 38. She did well academically at Girls' High and was chosen to be vice president of the Junior Arista honor society. She was accepted at and offered scholarships to Vassar College and Oberlin College, but the family could not afford the room and board costs to go to either, so instead, she selected Brooklyn College, where there was no charge for tuition and she could live at home and commute to the school.Winslow, ''Shirley Chisholm'', p. 21.

Shirley earned her Bachelor of Arts from Brooklyn College in 1946, majoring in sociology and minoring in Spanish (a language that she would employ at times during her political career). She won prizes for her debating skills and graduated ''cum laude''. During her time at Brooklyn College, she was a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and the Harriet Tubman Society. As a member of the Harriet Tubman Society, she advocated for inclusion (specifically in terms of the integration of black soldiers in the military during World War II), the addition of courses that focused on African-American history, and the involvement of more women in the student government. However, this was not her first introduction to activism or politics. Growing up, Shirley was surrounded by politics, as her father was an avid supporter of Marcus Garvey and a dedicated supporter of the rights of trade union members. She saw her community advocate for their rights as she witnessed the Barbados workers' and anti-colonial independence movements.

Shirley met Conrad O. Chisholm in the late 1940s. He had migrated to the United States from Jamaica in 1946, and he later became a private investigator who specialized in negligence-based lawsuits. They married in 1949 in a large West Indian-style wedding. She subsequently suffered two miscarriages, and to their disappointment the couple would have no children; although, in the view of scholar Julie Gallagher, it is possible that her career goals played a role in this outcome as well.

After graduating from college, Chisholm began working as a teacher's aide at the Mt. Calvary Child Care Center in Harlem. She would work at the center in a teaching role from 1946 to 1953. Meanwhile she was furthering her education, attending classes at night and earning her Master of Arts in childhood education from Teachers College of Columbia University in 1951.Winslow, ''Shirley Chisholm'', p. 26.

Early career

From 1953 to 1954 she was director of the Friend in Need Nursery, located in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and then from 1954 to 1959 she was director of the Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center, located in Lower Manhattan. At the latter there were 130 children, ages three to seven, and 24 employees reporting to her.Winslow, ''Shirley Chisholm'', p. 28. From 1959 to 1964, she was an educational consultant for the Division of Day Care in New York City's Bureau of Child Welfare. There, she was in charge of supervising ten day-care centers as well as starting up new ones. She became an authority on early education and child welfare issues.

Chisholm entered the world of politics in 1953 when she joined Wesley "Mac" Holder's effort to elect Lewis Flagg Jr. to the bench as the first black judge in Brooklyn. The Flagg election group later transformed into the Bedford–Stuyvesant Political League (BSPL). The BSPL pushed candidates to support civil rights, fought against racial discrimination in housing, and sought to improve economic opportunities and services in Brooklyn. Chisholm eventually left the group around 1958 after clashing with Holder over Chisholm's push to give female members of the group more input in decision making.

She also worked as a volunteer for white-dominated political clubs in Brooklyn, like the Brooklyn Democratic Clubs and the League of Women Voters. With the Political League, she was part of a committee that chose the recipient of its annual Brotherhood Award. She also was a representative of the Brooklyn branch of the National Association of College Women. Furthermore, within the political organizations she joined, Chisholm sought to make meaningful changes to the structure and make-up of the organizations, specifically the Brooklyn Democratic Clubs, which resulted in her being able to recruit more people of color into the 17th District Club and, thus, local politics.

In 1960, Chisholm joined a new organization, the Unity Democratic Club (UDC), led by former Elect Flagg member Thomas R. Jones. The UDC's membership was mostly middle class, racially integrated, and included women in leadership positions. Chisholm campaigned for Jones, who lost the election for an assembly seat in 1960, but ran again two years later and won, becoming Brooklyn's second black assemblyman.

State legislator

After Jones accepted a judicial appointment rather than seek reelection, Chisholm sought to run for his seat in the New York state assembly in 1964. Chisholm faced resistance based on her sex, with the UDC hesitant to support a female candidate. Chisholm chose to appeal directly to women voters, including using her role as Brooklyn branch president of Key Women of America to mobilize female voters. Chisholm won the Democratic primary in June 1964. She then won the seat in December with over 18,000 votes over Republican and Liberal party candidates, neither of whom received more than 1,900 votes.

Chisholm was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1965 to 1968, sitting in the 175th, 176th and 177th New York State Legislatures. By May 1965, she had already been honored in a "Salute to Women Doers" affair in New York. One of her early activities in the Assembly was to argue against the state's literacy test requiring English, holding that just because a person "functions better in his native language is no sign a person is illiterate". By early 1966, she was a leader in a push by the statewide Council of Elected Negro Democrats for black representation on key committees in the Assembly.

Her successes in the legislature included getting unemployment benefits extended to domestic workers. She also sponsored the introduction of a SEEK program (Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge) to the state, which provided disadvantaged students with the chance to enter college while receiving intensive remedial education.

In August 1968, she was elected as the Democratic National Committeewoman from New York State.

U.S. House of Representatives

Initial election

In 1968, Chisholm ran for the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 12th congressional district, which as part of a court-mandated reapportionment plan had been significantly redrawn to focus on Bedford–Stuyvesant and was thus expected to result in Brooklyn's first black member of Congress. (Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. had, in 1945, become the first black member of Congress from New York City as a whole.) As a result of the redrawing, the white incumbent in the former 12th, Representative Edna F. Kelly, sought reelection in a different district. Chisholm announced her candidacy around January 1968 and established some early organizational support. Her campaign slogan was "Unbought and unbossed". In the June 18, 1968, Democratic primary, Chisholm defeated two other black opponents, State Senator William S. Thompson and labor official Dollie Robertson. In the general election, she staged an upset victory over James Farmer, the former director of the Congress of Racial Equality who was running as a Liberal Party candidate with Republican support, winning by an approximately two-to-one margin. Chisholm thereby became the first black woman elected to Congress, and was the only woman in the first-year class that year.

Early terms

The Speaker of the House assigned Chisholm to serve on the House Agriculture Committee. Given her urban district, she felt the placement was irrelevant to her constituents. When Chisholm confided to Rebbe Menachem M. Schneerson that she was upset and insulted by her assignment, Schneerson suggested that she use the surplus food to help the poor and hungry. Chisholm subsequently met Bob Dole and worked to expand the food stamp program. She later played a critical role in the creation of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. Chisholm would credit Schneerson for the fact that so many "poor babies owhave milk and poor children have food". Chisholm was then also placed on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Soon after, she voted for Hale Boggs as House Majority Leader over John Conyers. As a reward for her support, Boggs assigned her to the much-prized Education and Labor Committee, which was her preferred committee. She was the third highest-ranking member of this committee when she retired from Congress.

Initially, Chisholm only hired women for her office; half of them were black. In later years, she did hire some men for both her Washington office and the one in her Brooklyn district. Chisholm said that she had faced much more discrimination during her New York legislative career because she was a woman than for her race.

Chisholm joined the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971 as one of its founding members. In the same year, she was also a founding member of the National Women's Political Caucus.

In May 1971, Chisholm and fellow New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug introduced a bill to provide $10 billion in federal funds for child-care services by 1975. A less expensive version introduced by Senator Walter Mondale eventually passed the House and Senate as the Comprehensive Child Development Bill, but was vetoed by President Richard Nixon in December 1971, who said it was too expensive and would undermine the institution of the family.

1972 presidential campaign

Chisholm began exploring her candidacy in July 1971 and formally announced her presidential bid on January 25, 1972, in a Baptist church in her district in Brooklyn. There she called for a "bloodless revolution" at the forthcoming Democratic nomination convention. Chisholm became the first African American to run for a major party's nomination for President of the United States in the 1972 U.S. presidential election, making her also the first woman ever to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination (U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith had previously run for the 1964 Republican presidential nomination). In her presidential announcement, Chisholm described herself as representative of the people and offered a new articulation of American identity: "I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman and equally proud of that. I am the candidate of the people and my presence before you symbolizes a new era in American political history."

Her campaign was underfunded, only spending $300,000 in total. She also struggled to be regarded as a serious candidate instead of as a symbolic political figure; the Democratic political establishment ignored her, and her black male colleagues provided little support. She later said, "When I ran for the Congress, when I ran for president, I met more discrimination as a woman than for being black. Men are men." In particular, she expressed frustration about the "black matriarch thing", saying, "They think I am trying to take power from them. The black man must step forward, but that doesn't mean the black woman must step back." Her husband, however, was fully supportive of her candidacy and said, "I have no hangups about a woman running for president." Security was also a concern, as, during the campaign, three confirmed threats were made against her life; Conrad Chisholm served as her bodyguard until U.S. Secret Service protection was given to her in May 1972.

Chisholm skipped the initial March 7 New Hampshire contest, instead focusing on the March 14 Florida primary, which she thought would be receptive due to its "blacks, youth, and a strong women's movement". But due to organizational difficulties and Congressional responsibilities, she only made two campaign trips there and ended with 3.5 percent of the vote for a seventh-place finish. Chisholm had difficulties gaining ballot access, but campaigned or received votes in primaries in fourteen states. Her largest number of votes came in the June 6 California primary, where she received 157,435 votes for 4.4 percent and a fourth-place finish, while her best percentage in a competitive primary came in the May 6 North Carolina one, where she got 7.5 percent for a third-place finish. Overall, she won 28 delegates during the primaries process itself. Chisholm's base of support was ethnically diverse and included the National Organization for Women. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem attempted to run as Chisholm delegates in New York. Altogether, during the primary season, she received 430,703 votes, which was 2.7 percent of the total of nearly 16 million cast and represented seventh place among the Democratic contenders. In June, Chisholm became the first woman to appear in a United States presidential debate.

At the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, there were still efforts taking place by the campaign of former Vice President Hubert Humphrey to stop the nomination of Senator George McGovern for president. After that failed and McGovern's nomination was assured, as a symbolic gesture, Humphrey released his black delegates to Chisholm. This, combined with defections from disenchanted delegates from other candidates, as well as the delegates she had won in the primaries, gave her a total of 152 first-ballot votes for the presidential nomination during the July 12 roll call. (Her precise total was 151.95.) Her largest support overall came from Ohio, with 23 delegates (slightly more than half of them white), even though she had not been on the ballot in the May 2 primary there. Her total gave her fourth place in the roll call tally, behind McGovern's winning total of 1,728 delegates. Chisholm said she ran for office "in spite of hopeless odds ... to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo".

It is sometimes stated that Chisholm won a primary in 1972, or won three states overall, with New Jersey, Louisiana, and Mississippi being so identified. None of these fit the usual definition of winning a plurality of the contested popular vote or delegate allocations at the time of a state primary, caucus, or state convention. In the June 6 New Jersey primary, there was a complex ballot that featured both a delegate selection vote and a non-binding, non-delegate-producing "beauty contest" presidential preference vote. In the delegate selection vote, Democratic front-runner McGovern defeated his main rival at that point, Humphrey, and won the large share of available delegates. Of the Democratic candidates, only Chisholm and former North Carolina governor Terry Sanford were on the statewide preference ballot. Sanford had withdrawn from the contest three weeks earlier. In that non-binding preference tally, which the Associated Press described as "meaningless", Chisholm received the majority of votes: 51,433, which was 66.9 percent. During the actual balloting at the national convention, Chisholm received votes from only 4 of New Jersey's 109 delegates, with 89 going to McGovern.

In the May 13 Louisiana caucuses, there was a battle between forces of McGovern and Alabama governor George Wallace; nearly all of the delegates chosen were those who identified as uncommitted, many of them black. Leading up to the convention, McGovern was thought to control 20 of Louisiana's 44 delegates, with most of the rest uncommitted. During the actual roll call at the national convention, Louisiana passed at first, then cast 18.5 of its 44 votes for Chisholm, with the next best finishers being McGovern and Senator Henry M. Jackson with 10.25 each. As one delegate explained, "Our strategy was to give Shirley our votes for sentimental reasons on the first ballot. However, if our votes would have made the difference, we would have gone with McGovern." In Mississippi, there were two rival party factions that each selected delegates at their own state conventions and caucuses: "regulars", representing the mostly-white state Democratic Party, and "loyalists", representing many blacks and white liberals. Each slate professed to be largely uncommitted, but the regulars were thought to favor Wallace and the loyalists McGovern. By the time of the national convention, the loyalists were seated following a credentials challenge, and their delegates were characterized as mostly supporting McGovern, with some support for Humphrey. During the convention, some McGovern delegates became angry about what they saw as statements from McGovern that backed away from his commitment to end U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, and cast protest votes for Chisholm as a result. During the actual balloting, Mississippi went in the first half of the roll call, and cast 12 of its 25 votes for Chisholm, with McGovern coming next with 10 votes.

During the campaign, the German filmmaker Peter Lilienthal shot the documentary film ''Shirley Chisholm for President'' for the German television channel ZDF.

Later terms

Chisholm created controversy when she visited rival and ideological opposite George Wallace in the hospital soon after his shooting in May 1972, during the presidential primary campaign. Several years later, when Chisholm worked on a bill to give domestic workers the right to a minimum wage, Wallace helped gain votes of enough Southern congressmen to push the legislation through the House.

From 1977 to 1981, during the 95th Congress and 96th Congress, Chisholm served as Secretary of the Democratic Caucus.

Throughout her tenure in Congress, Chisholm worked to improve opportunities for inner-city residents. She supported spending increases for education, health care, and other social services. She was very concerned by instances of discrimination against women, and especially those against impoverished women. She also focused on land rights for Native Americans.

In the area of national security and foreign policy, Chisholm worked for the revocation of Internal Security Act of 1950. She opposed the American involvement in the Vietnam War and the expansion of weapon developments and was a vocal opponent of the U.S. military draft. During the Jimmy Carter administration, she called for better treatment of Haitian refugees.

She was a forceful advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment, believing that the initial value of passing it would be in the social and psychological effects it would have more than any economic or legal impact. She did not want the amendment modified to incorporate a provision that would permit laws that purportedly protected the health and safety of females, saying such a modification would continue a traditional avenue of discrimination against women. Regarding a specific argument made along these lines, that the amendment would require women to be subject to the draft, Chisholm was unperturbed, saying that if there was a draft, women could serve, and that some larger, stronger women might perform better in infantry roles than some smaller, weaker men.

At the same time, Chisholm was aware of how much of second-wave feminism in the United States focused on the concerns of middle-class white women, such as the adoption of the term "Ms." At the 1973 convention of the National Women's Political Caucus, Chisholm said that "women of color" were faced with " double discrimination" that especially affected them economically and that the women's movement needed to make changes to better reflect such women and their concerns. Scholar Julie Gallagher has written that Chisholm's pressure in this regard did make some difference in the focus of the women's movement during subsequent years in the 1970s.

Chisholm's first marriage ended in a divorce that was granted on February 4, 1977, in the Dominican Republic. Later that year, on November 26, she married Arthur Hardwick, Jr., a former New York State Assemblyman whom Chisholm had known when they both served in that body and who was now a Buffalo, New York liquor store owner. The ceremony was held in a Buffalo area hotel. She indicated that while her legal name was now Hardwick, she would continue to use Chisholm in politics. She began spending some of her time in Buffalo, which brought some political criticism that she was being inattentive to her district.Winslow, ''Shirley Chisholm'', p. 147.

By the mid-late 1970s, there was growing dissatisfaction with Chisholm among some liberals in New York state and city politics, who felt that Chisholm too often sided with Democratic party bosses over liberal, black, or feminist challengers.Winslow, ''Shirley Chisholm'', pp. 143–144. Instances of her doing this included supporting the incumbent conservative Democrat John J. Rooney over the liberal antiwar activist Allard Lowenstein

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