Shirley Chisholm

Shirley St. Hill was born on November 30, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York. She spent part of her childhood with her grandmother in Barbados. She graduated Brooklyn College in 1946. She started her career as a school teacher and earned her master’s degree in elementary education from Columbia University.

Chisholm also served as a director of Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center from 1953 – 1959. She also worked for New York City’s Bureau of Child Welfare as an educational consultant from 1959 – 1964.

Shirley Chisholm became the first African American congresswoman in 1968. Her first seven terms were in the House of Representatives. Chisholm was originally assigned to the House Forestry Committee but she demanded reassignment, then she was placed on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. Soon she graduated to the Educational and Labor Committee. But in 1969, she was one of the original founders of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Chisholm also became the first African American candidate to try to run for the U.S presidency by running for the Democratic nomination in 1972. Chisholm strongly believed in minority education, employment opportunities, and a vocal opponent of the U.S. military draft during her time as a congresswoman. She left congress in 1983 and taught at Mount Holyoke College. She was popular on the lecture circuit.

Chisholm did get married and write two books called “Unbought and Unbossed” and “The Good fight.”

Eleven years after her death in 2005, she received the highest award Presidential Medal of Freedom. Chisholm proved to young African American woman that we can make change in the our communities and our government.