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Shirley, neé Shirley Anita St.
Hill, was born to Carribean immigrants in Brooklyn,
NY in November, 1924. She graduated from Brooklyn College in
1946 with a B.A. in sociology. Shirley was married to Conrad
Chisholm in 1949 (until 1977). In 1952 she received an M.A. from
Columbia University. While an education consultant for New York
City's day-care division, she was also active with community
and political groups, including the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and her district's
Unity Democratic Club.
In 1964 Shirley Chisholm was elected assembly
person, to the New York state legislature from the Fifty-fifth
district, serving until 1968. In 1968 she ran for congressional
representative from New York's Twelfth District and in defeating
the famous civil-rights leader James Farmer and became the first
Black woman elected to Congress when she was elected to the
House of Representatives by New York's Twelfth District.
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Newly elected to congress Shirley Chisholm
was assigned to the House Agriculture Committee, which she felt
was irrelevant to her urban constituency. In an unheard of move,
she demanded reassignment and got switched to the Veterans Affairs
Committee. Not long afterward she voted for Hale Boggs, who was
white, over John Conyers, who was black, for majority leader.
Boggs rewarded her with a place on the prized Education and Labor
Committee and she was its third ranking member when she left.
She was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Chisholm was a candidate for the Democratic
nomination for U.S. president in 1972. In her book, The Good
Fight(1973), she said,
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1971
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"Racism is so universal in this country,
so widespread and deepseated, that it is invisible because it
is so normal. "
"I ran for the Presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate
the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo."
"The next time a woman runs, or a black, a Jew or anyone
from a group that the country is 'not ready' to elect to its
highest office, I believe that he or she will be taken seriously
from the start."
Chisholm won 152 delegates before withdrawing
from the race.
In 1978, Shirley Chisolm married New York Assemblyman,
Arthur Hardwick, Jr.
In 1982 she declined to run for re-election to the house and retired
to private life moving to the home of her husband in Williamsville,
New York, a Buffalo suburb. Chisholm was named to the Purington
Chair Professorship at Mount Holyoke College (1983-1987) and was
a Visiting Professor at Spelman College (1985).
Arthur Hardwick died in 1986. Shirley Chisholm
died January 1, 2005 and is buried in Buffalo next to her husband.
She had no children.
A quote:
When morality comes up against
profit, it is seldom profit that loses.
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American History of Western New York