The political gamechanger: Shirley Chisholm, first black female in the US Congress

Shirley Chisholm became the first black female elected to the United States Congress in 1968. She served New York’s 12th Congressional District from 1969-1983. During this time, Chisholm delivered one of women’s rights most popular speeches, “Equal Rights for Women” in Washington D.C. to the House of Representatives on May 21, 1969 (Shah, 2015).

Throughout the 60s and 70s, race wars and equal rights protests are rampant. On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King, while he was standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

This spurred many African-Americans to take to the streets in protest and riots all across America. Also during this time, Congress authorized the 1968 Civil Rights Act, providing federal enforcement provisions for discrimination in housing. This document expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, (and as amended) handicap and family status. This law enabled housing opportunities for blacks beyond the “ghetto” (Smith).

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President Richard Nixon instituted the Office of Minority Business Enterprise in 1969 and signed the Executive Order 11478 which provided affirmative action to all federal government agencies and jobs. Also, The first National Black Economic Development Conference met on April 26th of that year in New York. James Forman created what is known as the “Black Manifesto” there (Alliance, 2008).

Women at this time are still fighting for equal rights. They are not allowed to open their own credit cards, serve on juries, and at the time of Chisholm’s speech, are just being allowed to enter ivy league schools.

A woman could even be fired from her job if she became pregnant (McLaughlin, 2014). This time period of women’s rights movements is referred to as “second wave feminism.” For Chisholm to be added to Congress as an African-American woman at this time is both controversial and groundbreaking (A&E, 2015).

Shirley (St. Hill) Chisholm was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 30, 1924. She grew up in a predominately black neighborhood and spent some of her childhood with her grandmother in Barbados. She graduated from Brooklyn College in 1964 with a bachelors in education. She taught for many years and ended up obtaining a masters in elementary education from Columbia University (A&E, 2015).

She served many roles in New York before becoming a congresswoman. She served as director of the Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center from 1953-1959 and then served as an educational consultant for the Bureau of Child Welfare from 1959-1964. When first appointed as congresswoman, she was assigned to the House Forestry Committee. Chisholm was not happy with this and demanded to be reassigned. She was then assigned to the Veterans’ Affairs Committee and eventually went on to the Education and Labor Committee (A&E, 2015).

In 1972 Chisholm became, “The first major-party African-American candidate to make bid for the U.S. presidency,” running for the Democratic nomination. Her platforms included minority education and employment opportunities and her strong opposition of the U.S. military draft (A&E, 2015).

Post Congress, she taught elementary education at Mount Holyoke College and was a popular public speaker. She also wrote two books in her lifetime called Unbought and Unbossed in 1970 and The Good Fight in 1973 (A&E, 2015).

She married Conrad Chisholm in 1949 and remained married to him until his death in 1977. In 1986 she married Arthur Harwick. On January 1, 2005, Chisholm passed away at the age of 80 near Daytona Beach, Florida. She was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom almost 11 years later in November 2015 (A&E, 2015).

Robert E. Williams, president of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People in Flagler County said of Chisholm, “She was our Moses that opened the Red Sea for us,” (A&E, 2015).

The Chisholm used this text to persuade the House of Representatives to make a change in policy regarding women’s rights in the work place (Shah, 2015). She was urging lawmakers to pass the Equal Rights Amendment to protect all working people and to grant them rights like fair pay, safe working conditions, job stability in sickness and layoffs and to provide comfortable retirements. With Chisholm’s help and efforts “The Equal Rights Amendment was finally approved by Congress in 1972, but failed to be ratified by the required 38 states by the 1982 deadline (nolo.com).

Shirley Chisholm was one of the most influential people to impact both African-American and women’s culture in the United States. Without her efforts, equality for women and African-Americans would not be where it is today.