Courtesy Of nmaahc.si.edu
"Unbought and Unbossed":
Courtesy of www.youtube.com
"A new hat, rather a bonnet, was tossed into the Democratic presisdential race today. That of Mrs. Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to serve in Congress."
~ Walter Cronkite CBS Evening News Anchorman
After gaining political traction in Congress, Chisholm did the unthinkable and ran for the 1972 Democratic nomination for president, becoming the first-ever African-American to do so, causing the barrier of inequality in politics to start to crack. When her campaign started, white journalists and politicians didn't take her seriously and many horrendous things were said about her. She was told she shouldn’t run because of her menstrual cycle, and that she was playing “vaginal politics”. She was mocked and told she wouldn’t last six weeks. She faced death threats, assassination attempts, and racists vandalized her campaign materials with racial slurs. After being banned from being on televised primary debates, she took legal action.
“I was attacked 3 times during the campaign. One of them, I was very fortunate. A man had a knife with a 10 inch blade and he was going to stab me in my back. He was following close behind me because he wanted to get me good. They took him in...I don’t like to talk about it.” ~ Shirley Chisholm
"Suppose that we had a menopausal woman President who had to make the decision of the Bay of Pigs or the Russian contretemps with Cuba?"
~ Edgar Berman (physician and friend of former Vice President Hubert Humphrey)
Courtesy Of www.newyorktimes.com
Courtesy Of www.nytimes.com
Couresty Of www.blackrepertorygroup.com
Despite these barriers, Chisholm persevered and continued to campaign. Although she didn’t win the nomination, she earned 152 delegates, a significant triumph for the time. Chisholm’s presidential campaign allowed other African-Americans and women to see that they could be represented in politics and the campaign broke the barrier of inequality that no one else had dared to break.
Democratic Convention
Courtesy Of www.jofreeman.com
""Brothers and sisters! At least, I've reached this spot!" As she looked out on the crowd, she was struck by the number of older African-American women and men, many with tears in their eyes, others with faces full of joy. " I [Chisholm] thought I could read their lives' experiences in their faces at that instant, and I knew what it was they felt"
~ Barbara Winslow, Author of "Shirley Chisholm: Catalyst for Change"
"I ran because somebody had to do it first. In this country, everybody is supposed to be able to run for president... that has never really been true."
~ Shirley Chisholm
"I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo."
~ Shirley Chisholm
Lilly Smith & Sarah Ragoonanan Junior Category - Group Website Word Count - 1193 Process Paper Word Count - 486 Media Time - 3:53