THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm
November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005
“I want to be remembered as a catalyst for change in America” – Shirley Chisholm
Politician, Author and Educator. Active member of NOW and the Equal Rights Amendment Ratification Council. The first African American woman elected to the New York State Assembly, 1964. The first African-American woman elected to Congress, 1968. The first African-American candidate for President of the United States, 1972. Co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus, 1971, Congressional Women’s Caucus, 1977 and the National Political Congress of Black Women, 1983. Purington Chair at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. Helped form the African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom, 1990. Posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama at a ceremony in the White House, November 2015.
Video courtesy of The U.S. Postal Service’s Black Heritage Limited Edition Stamp Series, 2014
More About Shirley:
- The Chisholm Project official website
- Speeches, interviews and articles
- Shirley Chisholm Had Guts | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC, 2018
- National Women’s Histories Museum, 2015
- CHISHOLM ’72 UNBOUGHT & UNBOSSED | Women Make Movies | Clip 2010
- National Leadership Visionary Project interview 2005
- Carol Spalding Miner speaks with Shirley Chisholm and responds to questions from the audience about President Reagan’s political agenda, the importance of education, and her personal background and life in politics, Florida Community College at Jacksonville 1985
- Shirley Chisholm lecture at Greenfield Community College MA, 1983
- The Ticket That Might Have Been…President Chisholm By Gloria Steinem, 1973
- Shirley Chisholm speaking at UCLA May, 1972
- Shirley Chisholm announces her bid for the Presidency 1972
- Shirley Chisholm’s speech, For the Equal Rights Amendment, delivered August 10, 1970, Washington, DC.
- The papers of Shirley Chisholm
- On C-SPAN
- Selected books by and about Shirley Chisholm
- Cited in Barbara Love’s book, Feminists Who Changed America, pages 82-83
- Shirley Chisholm, The Good Fight
- Shirley Chisholm, Unbought and Unbossed
- Susan Brownmiller, Shirley Chisholm: A Biography
- Barbara Winslow, Shirley Chisholm: Catalyst for Change
- Wikipedia