On September 26, 1971, Representative Shirley Chisholm (D-New York) announced that she was entering the Democratic presidential primaries. Already the first African-American congresswoman, she became the first African-American of a major party to run for a presidential nomination. Famous for saying, “If you don’t have a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,” Chisholm fearlessly broke boundaries that has opened the door for an increasingly diverse crop of public servants in government today.
Born in 1924 in Brooklyn, NY, Chisholm spent a portion of her childhood with her grandmother in Barbados. She ultimately returned to her parent’s Brooklyn home and completed her education in the United States. She started her professional career as a teacher, but became increasingly interested in politics. By 1968, she became the first African-American woman elected to the United States Congress. From the start, she struggled to gain acceptance from her male peers but she persisted in her goals, once saying, “I have no intention of just sitting quietly and observing. I intend to speak out immediately in order to focus on the nation’s problems.” Her legislative focus was disadvantaged Americans. Among her many actions, she fought for domestic worker benefits, pushed for expanded childcare for women, supported a national school lunch bill and a federally-funded food stamps program, and advocated for immigrants.
Three years after breaking boundaries and fighting for the underprivileged as a congresswoman, she pursued the Democratic nomination for the 1972 presidential race. With the slogan, “Unbought and Unbossed,” Chisholm officially announced her candidacy with the progressive message, “I stand before you today, to repudiate the ridiculous notion that the American people will not vote for qualified candidates, simply because he is not white or because she is not a male.”
Throughout her presidential campaign, there were assassination attempts on her life and she had to sue to get included in the televised debates. Although she made it to the Democratic convention, George McGovern became the presidential candidate who ultimately lost to the Republican incumbent, Richard Nixon.
Chisholm served seven terms in Congress and returned to teaching after retiring in 1982. Although she died in 2005, her legacy lives on with the 2008 election of the first African-American president, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton’s run in the 2016 presidential election.