Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholmwas an American politician, educator, and author. In 1968, she became the first African American woman elected to the United States Congress, and represented New York's 12th Congressional District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1972, she became the first major-party black candidate for President of the United States, and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth30 November 1924
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
America has the laws and the material resources it takes to insure justice for all its people. What it lacks is the heart, the humanity ...
I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish. That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free.
Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.
We have never seen health as a right. It has been conceived as a privilege, available only to those who can afford it. This is the real reason the American health care system is in such a scandalous state.
That's what's wrong with the country. There are too many 'good soldiers' accepting too many bad decisions.
Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power.
I have never cared too much what people way. What I am interested in is what they do.
The difference between de jure and de facto segregation is the difference between open, forthright bigotry and the shamefaced kind that works through unwritten agreements between real estate dealers, school officials, and local politicians.
Racism keeps people who are being managed from finding out the truth through contact with each other.
There is a good deal of evidence that the United States is moving to the right, and that the main force behind the movement is a resurgence, in a new form, of racial prejudice.
The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers -- a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.
We have been so patient and loyal ... and what has it gotten us? We want our full share now.
The minorities have been confined to the city by a moat of bigotry.
Some fine men are in Congress, too few, trying to do a responsible job. But they are surrounded and almost neutralized by a greater number whose instinct is to make a deal before they make a decision.