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Shirley Anita Chisholm

Representative, 1969–1983, Democrat from New York

Shirley Anita Chisholm Image Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Shirley Anita Chisholm was the first African-American woman to serve in Congress, representing a newly reapportioned U.S. House district centered in Brooklyn. Elected in 1968 because of her local roots in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, Chisholm nevertheless served as a national figure—catapulted into the limelight by virtue of her race, gender, and outspoken personality. In 1972, in a largely symbolic undertaking, she campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination. But “Fighting Shirley” Chisholm’s frontal assault on many congressional traditions and her reputation as a crusader limited her influence as a legislator. “I am the people’s politician,” she once told the New York Times. “If the day should ever come when the people can’t save me, I’ll know I’m finished. That’s when I’ll go back to being a professional educator.”1

Shirley Anita St. Hill was born on November 20, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the oldest of four daughters of Charles St. Hill, a factory laborer from Guyana, and Ruby Seale St. Hill, a seamstress from Barbados. For part of her childhood, Shirley St. Hill lived in Barbados on her maternal grandparents’ farm, receiving a British-system education while her parents worked during the Great Depression to make money to settle the family in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The most outward manifestation of her West Indies roots was her slight, clipped, British accent that she retained throughout her adult life. She attended public schools in Brooklyn and graduated with high marks. Accepted to Vassar and Oberlin colleges, Shirley St. Hill attended Brooklyn College on scholarship and graduated cum laude with a B.A. in sociology in 1946. From 1946 to 1953, Chisholm worked as a nursery school teacher and then as director of two day care centers. St. Hill married Conrad Q. Chisholm, a private investigator, in 1949. Three years later, Shirley Chisholm earned an M.A. in early childhood education from Columbia University. She served as an educational consultant for New York City’s Division of Day Care from 1959 to 1964. In 1964, Chisholm was elected as an assemblywoman in the New York state legislature—the second African-American woman to serve in Albany.

A court-ordered reapportionment, which created a new Brooklyn congressional district carved out of Chisholm’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, convinced her to run for Congress. The influential Democratic political machine, headed by Stanley Steingut, declared its intention to send an African American to the House from the new district. The endorsement of the machine usually meant victory in the primary which, in the heavily Democratic area, was tantamount to election. In the primary, Chisholm faced three African-American challengers: civil court judge Thomas R. Jones, a former district leader and New York assemblyman; Dolly Robinson, a former district co-leader; and William C. Thompson, a well-financed state senator. Chisholm roamed the new district in a sound truck which pulled up outside housing projects while the candidate announced: “Ladies and Gentleman…this is fighting Shirley Chisholm coming through.” Chisholm capitalized on her personal campaigning style. “I have a way of talking that does something to people,” she noted. “I have a theory about campaigning. You have to let them feel you.”2 In the primary in mid-June 1968, Chisholm defeated Thompson, her nearest competitor, by about 800 votes in an election marked by light voter turnout.

In the general election, Chisholm faced the Republican- Liberal candidate James Farmer, a civil rights activist. Both candidates held similar positions on housing, employment, and education issues and also were united in their opposition to the Vietnam War. Farmer charged that the Democratic Party “took [blacks] for granted and thought they had us in their pockets….We must be in a position to use our power as a swing vote.”3 But the election turned on the issue of gender. Farmer hammered away, arguing that “women have been in the driver’s seat” in black communities for too long and that the district needed “a man’s voice in Washington,” not that of a “little schoolteacher.”4 Chisholm, whose campaign motto was “unbought and unbossed,” met that charge head-on, using Farmer’s rhetoric to highlight discrimination against women and to explain her unique qualifications. “There were Negro men in office here before I came in five years ago, but they didn’t deliver,” Chisholm countered. “People came and asked me to do something…I’m here because of the vacuum.” Chisholm portrayed Farmer as an outsider (he lived in Manhattan) and also used her fluent Spanish to appeal to the growing Hispanic population in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood; Puerto Rican immigrants accounted for about 20 percent of the district vote. The deciding factor, however, was the district’s overwhelming liberal tilt: More than 80 percent of the voters were registered Democrats. Chisholm won the general election by a resounding 67 percent of the vote. Thereafter, she was never seriously challenged for her seat in six subsequent general elections.5

Chisholm was part of a freshman class that included African Americans of future prominence: Louis Stokes of Ohio and William L. Clay of Missouri. Chisholm’s class boosted the number of African Americans in the House from five to 10, the largest total up to that time. She also was the only new woman to enter Congress in 1969.

Chisholm’s welcome in the House was not warm, due to her immediate outspokenness. “I have no intention of just sitting quietly and observing,” she said. “I intend…to focus attention on the nation’s problems.” She did just that, lashing out against the Vietnam War in her first floor speech on March 26, 1969. Chisholm vowed to vote against any defense appropriation bill “until the time comes when our values and priorities have been turned right-side up again.”6 She was assigned to the Committee on Agriculture, a decision which she appealed directly to House Speaker John McCormack of Massachusetts (bypassing Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, the chairman of the Democratic selection committee). McCormack told her to be a “good soldier,” to which Chisholm responded by bringing her complaint to the House Floor. She was reassigned to the Veterans’ Affairs Committee which, though not one of her top choices, was more in tune with her district’s makeup. “There are a lot more veterans in my district than trees,” she quipped.7 From 1971 to 1977, she served on the Committee on Education and Labor, winning a place on that panel with the help of Hale Boggs of Louisiana, for whom she had voted as Majority Leader.8 She also served on the Committee on Organization Study and Review (known as the Hansen Committee), which recommended reforms in the selection process for committee chairmen that were adopted by the Democratic Caucus in 1971. From 1977 to 1981, Chisholm served as Secretary of the Democratic Caucus. She eventually left her Education Committee assignment to accept a seat on the Rules Committee in 1977. She was the first black woman (and only the second woman ever) to serve on that powerful panel. Chisholm also was a founding member of the Congressional Women’s Caucus in 1977.

Chisholm’s congressional career was marked by continuity with her earlier community activist causes. She sponsored federal funding increases to extend daycare facility hours and a guaranteed minimum annual income for families. She was a fierce defender of federal assistance to education, serving as a primary backer of a national school lunch bill and leading her colleagues in overriding President Gerald R. Ford’s veto on this measure. By her own admission, however, Chisholm did not view herself as a “lawmaker, an innovator in the field of legislation.” Rather, in her efforts to address the needs of the “have-nots,” she often chose to work outside the established system. At times she criticized the Democratic leadership in Congress as much as she did the Republicans in the White House. She played more the role of an explorer and a trailblazer than she did the role of a legislative artisan.9

True to this approach, Chisholm declared her candidacy for the 1972 Democratic nomination for President, charging that none of the other candidates represented the interests of blacks and the inner-city poor. She campaigned across the country and got her name on the ballot in 12 primaries, becoming as well known outside her Brooklyn neighborhood as she was inside it. At the Democratic National Convention she received 152 delegate votes, or 10 percent of the total, a respectable showing, given her low funding. A 1974 Gallup Poll listed her as one of the top 10 most-admired women in America—ahead of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Coretta Scott King and tied with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for sixth place.10 But while the presidential bid enhanced Chisholm’s national profile, it also stirred controversy among House colleagues. Chisholm’s candidacy split the Congressional Black Caucus. Many male colleagues felt she had not consulted them or had betrayed the group’s interests by trying to create a coalition of women, Hispanics, white liberals, and welfare recipients.11 Pervasive gender discrimination, Chisholm noted, cut across race lines: “Black male politicians are no different from white male politicians. This ‘woman thing’ is so deep. I’ve found it out in this campaign if I never knew it before.”12 Her campaign also strained relations with other women Members of Congress, particularly Bella Abzug of New York, who instead endorsed George McGovern.

By 1976, Chisholm faced a stiff challenge from within her own party primary by a longtime political rival, New York City Councilman Samuel D. Wright. Wright, born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, was a formidable opponent who had represented Brooklyn in the New York assembly for a number of years before winning a seat on the city council. He criticized Chisholm for her absenteeism in the House, brought on by the rigors of her presidential campaign, and a lack of connection with the district. Chisholm countered by playing on her national credentials and role as a reformer of Capitol Hill culture. “I think my role is to break new ground in Congress,” Chisholm noted. She insisted that her strength was in bringing legislative factions together. “I can talk with legislators from the South, the West, all over. They view me as a national figure and that makes me more acceptable.”13 Two weeks later Chisholm turned back Wright and Hispanic political activist Luz Vega in the Democratic primary, winning 54 percent of the vote to 36 percent and 10 percent, respectively, for Wright and Vega.14 She won the general election handily with 83 percent of the vote.15

From the late 1970s forward, speculation among Brooklyn Democrats was that Chisholm was losing interest in her House job. Her name was widely floated as a possible candidate for several education-related jobs, including president of the City College of New York and chancellor of the New York City public school system.16 In 1982, Chisholm declined to seek re-election. “Shirley Chisholm would like to have a little life of her own,” she told the Christian Science Monitor, citing personal reasons for her decision to leave the House.17 She wanted to spend more time with her second husband, Arthur Hardwick, Jr., a New York state legislator whom she had married about six months after divorcing Conrad Chisholm in 1977. Hardwick, who sustained serious injuries in an automobile accident a year after their marriage, died in 1986.

Other reasons factored into her decision. In part, she had grown disillusioned over the conservative turn the country had taken with the election of President Ronald W. Reagan in 1980. Also, there were tensions with people on her side of the political fence, particularly African-American politicians who, she insisted, misunderstood her efforts at alliance building. Chisholm maintained that many in the black community did not understand the need for negotiation with white politicians. “We still have to engage in compromise, the highest of all arts,” Chisholm noted. “Blacks can’t do things on their own, nor can whites. When you have black racists and white racists it is very difficult to build bridges between communities.”18

After leaving Congress in January 1983, Chisholm helped cofound the National Political Congress of Black Women and campaigned for Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988. She also taught at Mt. Holyoke College in 1983. Though nominated by President William J. Clinton for U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica, Chisholm declined due to ill health. Chisholm lived in Palm Coast, Florida, where she wrote and lectured. She died on January 1, 2005, in Ormond Beach, Florida.

Further Reading

“Chisholm, Shirley Anita,” Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress, 1774–Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000371.

Brownmiller, Susan. Shirley Chisholm (New York: Doubleday, 1970).

Chisholm, Shirley. The Good Fight (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973).

_____. Unbought and Unbossed (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970).

Manuscript Collections

Rutgers University Library Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics (New Brunswick, NJ). Papers: 1963–1994, approximately 3.7 cubic feet. The papers of Shirley Chisholm consist of speeches, 1971–1989, on a wide variety of topics; congressional files, 1965–1981, composed primarily of complimentary letters received and presidential campaign materials; general files, 1966–1986, consisting chiefly of biographical materials, including information on Chisholm’s record in Congress; newspaper clippings, 1969–1990, in the form of editorials written by Chisholm, as well as coverage of her speeches, writings, and retirement; constituent newsletters, 1969–1982, complemented by selected press releases; photographs (including photocopies and other reproductions), 1969–1990, many of which depict Chisholm with other political figures; publications, 1969–1992, with additional coverage of Chisholm’s political career and her retirement; and campaign miscellany, 1969 and 1972, including buttons from her presidential campaign and political posters.

Footnotes

  1. Susan Brownmiller, “This Is Fighting Shirley Chisholm,” 13 April 1969, New York Times: SM32.
  2. Brownmiller, “This Is Fighting Shirley Chisholm.”
  3. John Kifner, “G.O.P. Names James Farmer For Brooklyn Race for Congress,” 20 May 1968, New York Times: 34; John Kifner, “Farmer and Woman in Lively Bedford–Stuyvesant Race,” 26 October 1968, New York Times: 22.
  4. Shirley Washington, Outstanding Women in Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Capitol Historical Society, 1995): 17.
  5. “Election Statistics, 1920 to Present,” http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/index.aspx.
  6. Current Biography, 1969 (New York: H.W. Wilson and Company, 1969): 94; Hope Chamberlin, A Minority of Members: Women in Congress (New York: Praeger, 1973): 325
  7. Karen Foerstel, Biographical Dictionary of Congressional Women (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999): 56.
  8. Jane Perlez, “Rep. Chisholm’s Angry Farewell,” 12 October 1982, New York Times: A24.
  9. Marcy Kaptur, Women of Congress: A Twentieth-Century Odyssey (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1996): 150–151; see also, Shirley Chisholm, Unbought and Unbossed (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970): 70, 112.
  10. “The Gallup Poll: Meir, Betty Ford Are Most Admired,” 2 January 1975, Washington Post: B3.
  11. Kaptur, Women of Congress: 150; William L. Clay, Sr., Just Permanent Interests (New York: Armistead Press, 1993): 222.
  12. Karen Foerstel and Herbert Foerstel, Climbing the Hill: Gender Conflict in Congress (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996): 30.
  13. Charlayne Hunter, “Chisholm-Wright Feud in Brooklyn Is Eroding Black’s Political Power,” 20 March 1976, New York Times: 24; Ronald Smothers, “Rep. Chisholm Battling Wright in Showdown Race in Brooklyn,” 30 August 1976, New York Times: 26; Ronald Smothers, “Wright, Mrs. Chisholm Trade Charges in Face-to&-Face Debate in Brooklyn,” 3 September 1976, New York Times: A14.
  14. “Voting in Primaries for U.S. House and State Legislature,” 16 September 1976, New York Times: 34.
  15. “Election Statistics, 1920 to Present,” http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/index.aspx.
  16. Marcia Chambers, “School Post Weighed for Mrs. Chisholm,” 18 February 1978, New York Times: B13; Samuel Weiss, “Rep. Chisholm Is a Candidate for College Job,” 19 February 1981, New York Times: B12.
  17. Julia Malone, “Advice From Retiring Insiders on Shaping Better Congress,” 3 November 1982, Christian Science Monitor: 1.
  18. Malone, “Advice From Retiring Insiders on Shaping Better Congress.”