My God, what do we want? What does any human being want? Take away an accident of pigmentation of a thin layer of our outer skin and there is no difference between me and anyone else. All we want is for that trivial difference to make no difference.
- Shirley Chisholm (November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005)
She was a politician, educator, and author. She was the first Black woman elected to Congress and the first major-party Black candidate for President of the United States and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Shirley Chisholm became the first Barbadian African American congresswoman in 1968. 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 major-party Barbadian African American candidate to make a bid for the U.S. presidency, and announced her historic campaign for President at Brooklyn’s Concord Baptist Church on this date January 25, 1972.
“You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.” - Shirley Chisholm
“Make you co-op-er-ate with the rhythm, that is what I give em, Reagan is the Prez but I voted for Shirley Chisholm.” - Biz Markie
Regina King stars as Shirley Chisholm in SHIRLEY--the story of the first Black congresswoman and her trailblazing run for president of the United States. Directed by John Ridley and co-starring, Lance Reddick, Lucas Hedges, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Christina Jackson, Dorian Crossmond Missick, Amirah Vann, with André Holland and Terrence Howard, the film chronicles Chisholm's audacious, boundary-breaking 1972 presidential campaign.