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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Shirley Chisholm is getting a quick mention in

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Speaker 1: one of our upcoming episodes. Since our episode on her

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Speaker 1: came out a few years ago, at this point, we

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Speaker 1: thought we would bring it back into people's feeds. One

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Speaker 1: thing we mentioned in this episode as that in the

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Speaker 1: future we might do an episode on the Equal Rights Amendment.

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Speaker 1: That future has happened now. We did that episode on

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Speaker 1: February If you're curious for me as well, have been

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Speaker 1: a hundred years ago. I don't even so, I know

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Speaker 1: it's whatever. What eon was that? But this episode originally

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Speaker 1: came out on November five. We hope you enjoy Welcome

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Speaker 1: to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Tracy be Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Today we are

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Speaker 1: going to talk about Shirley Chisholm. She has been on

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Speaker 1: my list for a really long time, but we're coming

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Speaker 1: up on the fiftieth anniversary of her becoming the first

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Speaker 1: black woman elected to the US Congress. I think this

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Speaker 1: episode is actually coming out on that anniversary, so it

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Speaker 1: seemed like a really good time to move her up

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Speaker 1: from the top of the list. She's also making appearance

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Speaker 1: on this day in history class, so it is great

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Speaker 1: to be able to research two different shows at the

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Speaker 1: same time. Who Uh. Shirley Chisholm was born Shirley Anita

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Speaker 1: st Hill on November nine, four in Brooklyn, New York.

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Speaker 1: Her parents were both immigrants to the United States. Her mother,

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Speaker 1: Ruby was from Barbados and immigrated to the US in ninete.

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Speaker 1: Shirley's father, Charles, was born in British Guiana which is

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Speaker 1: now just Guiana, and he lived in Barbados in Cuba

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Speaker 1: before arriving in the US in ninete, and even though

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Speaker 1: he had been born in South America, he always thought

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Speaker 1: of himself as Barbadian. Charles and Ruby had met in

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Speaker 1: Barbados before they each, independently of one another, immigrated to

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Speaker 1: the United States. They both move to Brooklyn, which had

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Speaker 1: a significant population of Caribbean immigrants. At least sixteen percent

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Speaker 1: of Brooklyn's black residents were from the Caribbean. Charles and

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Speaker 1: Ruby became reacquainted in Brooklyn and they got married after

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Speaker 1: a short but very strict and traditional courtship. The st

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Speaker 1: Hills went on to have four daughters. Shirley was the oldest,

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Speaker 1: and was followed by Odessa, Muriel, and Selma. Charles and

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Speaker 1: Ruby raised their daughters to be disciplined, thrifty, and hard

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Speaker 1: working Christians. They also had two very clear goals for

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Speaker 1: their family. They wanted to own their home and they

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Speaker 1: wanted all of their daughters to go to college. But

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Speaker 1: money was a very serious obstacle to both of these goals.

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Speaker 1: Charles was a laborer and his job as a baker's

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Speaker 1: assistant was very low paying. There weren't really any options

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Speaker 1: for affordable childcare either, so Ruby couldn't work outside the home.

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Speaker 1: Once she started having children. She tried to help make

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Speaker 1: ends meet by taking in sewing, but it was just

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Speaker 1: not enough money for them to save for a home

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Speaker 1: or for a college education for their daughters. So in

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Speaker 1: before their youngest daughter, Selma, was born, the st Hills

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Speaker 1: decided to send Shirley, Odessa, and Muriel to Barbados. There,

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Speaker 1: they would live with Ruby's mother and be raised with

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Speaker 1: the help of a sister, and the girl's education was

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Speaker 1: part of this decision. Ruby thought that they would get

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Speaker 1: a better education in Barbados, where schools were strict and

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Speaker 1: focused on reading, writing, and arithmetic, rather than in the US,

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Speaker 1: which had widely adopted kindergarten and play based learning in

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Speaker 1: the early grades. Ruby traveled to Barbados with her daughters

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Speaker 1: and four of their cousins and she stayed there for

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Speaker 1: six months before going back to Brooklyn. And of course,

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Speaker 1: life in Barbados was dramatically different from what the girls

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Speaker 1: had been used to back in the States. They went

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Speaker 1: from living in a densely populated city to living on

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Speaker 1: a farm, and their chores on the farm included caring

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Speaker 1: for the animals and vegetables that would help be the family.

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Speaker 1: The culture shock was repeated when the st Hills decided

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Speaker 1: to bring their daughters back from Barbados when Shirley was ten.

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Speaker 1: She had left for Barbados at the age of three,

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Speaker 1: and she had very little memory of Brooklyn by the

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Speaker 1: time she got home again. In Barbados, she had been

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Speaker 1: living in a close knit community where everyone knew each other,

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Speaker 1: but Brooklyn was full of strangers that she wasn't supposed

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Speaker 1: to talk to. The people around her in Brooklyn were

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Speaker 1: also very different. At the time, the st Hills were

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Speaker 1: living in Brooklyn's Brownsville neighborhood, which was predominantly Jewish and

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Speaker 1: included a lot of emigrants from Eastern Europe, as well

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Speaker 1: as people from Italy, Puerto Rico, and Syria. In Barbados,

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Speaker 1: they had been surrounded almost entirely by other Barbadians. Shirley

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Speaker 1: also started seeing racial prejudice and discrimination after getting back

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Speaker 1: to the US. There was, of course racism in Barbados,

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Speaker 1: which was still under British colonial rule and was home

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Speaker 1: to a growing movement for independence and civil rights, but

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Speaker 1: since they had been living on a farm in a

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Speaker 1: rural area, it just was not something that the children

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Speaker 1: were conscious about day to day. In Brooklyn, however, racial

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Speaker 1: disparities were obvious. For example, Shirley went from attending a

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Speaker 1: school in Barbados that had black teachers and staff to

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Speaker 1: one in Brooklyn in which nearly all the teachers and

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Speaker 1: administrators were white. The family also experienced poverty in both

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Speaker 1: Barbados in Brooklyn like The reason that the st Hills

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Speaker 1: had not all gone to Barbados together was that that

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Speaker 1: would have been even harder than having the parents in

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Speaker 1: New York and the children in Barbados. But the experience

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Speaker 1: of poverty was completely different in these two places. And Barbados,

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Speaker 1: they were poor, but they were able to raise their

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Speaker 1: own food, and they were surrounded by a community of

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Speaker 1: people who were in very similar circumstances, and they all

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Speaker 1: worked to support and nurture each other. But in Brooklyn

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Speaker 1: they faced social stigma about being poorer. On top of

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Speaker 1: hunger and a lack of resources, it was also cold.

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Speaker 1: Apart from the temperature differences between New York and the Caribbean,

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Speaker 1: parts of the St. Hill Home in Brooklyn had no heat.

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Speaker 1: Based on her age and her education in Barbados, surely

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Speaker 1: should have started sixth grade when she came back to

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Speaker 1: the US, but was placed in third grade instead. Her

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Speaker 1: skills in subjects like reading and writing were really good,

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Speaker 1: but because she hadn't been attending school in the United States,

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Speaker 1: she knew very little about US history and geography. Naturally,

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Speaker 1: she was bored and unchallenged, and she dealt with it

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Speaker 1: by misbehaving in class. Fortunately, her teacher realized exactly what

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Speaker 1: was going on right away and arranged for her to

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Speaker 1: have a tutor. Within eighteen months, she had surpassed her

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Speaker 1: peers of her own age and had grown to really

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Speaker 1: love school, and that was something that would continue for

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Speaker 1: the rest of her education. In nineteen thirty six, the St.

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Speaker 1: Hills moved from Brooklyn's Brownsville neighborhood to Bedford Stuyvesant. With

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Speaker 1: all the girls in school, Shirley's mother was able to

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Speaker 1: work again and she got a job as a domestic.

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Speaker 1: Shirley became responsible for her younger sisters, so she would

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Speaker 1: pick them up to go home for lunch, take them

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Speaker 1: back to school, and then after school she would pick

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Speaker 1: them up again and look after them until after their

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Speaker 1: mother got home. Ruby was still really involved in her

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Speaker 1: daughter's vibes in their education, though sometimes she would do

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Speaker 1: her daughter's chores so that they could spend more time

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Speaker 1: on their school work, and then she also took them

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Speaker 1: on regular trips to the public library and asked them

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Speaker 1: lots and lots of questions about the books that they

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Speaker 1: were reading before their next trip. Shirley entered Girls High

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Speaker 1: School in Brooklyn in nineteen thirty nine, and she graduated

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Speaker 1: in nineteen forty two. She excelled there and she got

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Speaker 1: scholarships to Vassar and Oberlin, but the st Hills could

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Speaker 1: not afford to pay for room and board at either

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Speaker 1: of those schools, so instead, Shirley entered Brooklyn College in

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Speaker 1: the fall of nineteen forty two. The racial disparities that

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Speaker 1: Shirley had experienced in her education so far continued when

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Speaker 1: she got to college. Even though Brooklyn had a significant

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Speaker 1: black population, there were only about sixty black students at

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Speaker 1: the college. That was out of roughly ten thousand graduate

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Speaker 1: and undergraduate students. Most of the teachers and administrators were

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Speaker 1: also white, and the entirety of the student council was white.

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Speaker 1: When Shirley was growing up, her parents had been very

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Speaker 1: strict and very focused on her schooling, and that continued

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Speaker 1: to be true when she started college. During her first year,

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Speaker 1: she spent most of her time studying, and she did

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Speaker 1: not have much of a social life. But she really

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Speaker 1: thrived in college and ultimately joined the Harriet Tubman Society,

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Speaker 1: the Debating Society, the Brooklyn chapter of the nub A

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Speaker 1: c P, and the Brooklyn Urban League. She majored in

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Speaker 1: sociology and minored in Spanish, and she graduated with honors

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Speaker 1: in nineteen Shirley also started on the path to politics

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Speaker 1: while she was in college. She joined the seventeenth Assembly

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Speaker 1: District Democratic Club, and she also met Wesley McDonald holder,

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Speaker 1: who was known as Mack. During her senior year. He

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Speaker 1: was a political organizer and was nicknamed the Dean of

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Speaker 1: Black Brooklyn politics. He would become her political mentor. One

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Speaker 1: of her professors also told her during class that she

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Speaker 1: should go into politics, and she replied, you forget two things.

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Speaker 1: I'm black and I'm a woman. But she did go

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Speaker 1: into politics, which we were going to talk about after

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Speaker 1: we first paused for a little sponsor break. After graduating

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Speaker 1: from college, Shirley st. Hill lived with her parents, who

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Speaker 1: had saved up enough money to buy a home thanks

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Speaker 1: to her father's work in a factory during World War Two.

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Speaker 1: For a while, she struggled to find a job, though

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Speaker 1: she was very diminutive, I mean just tiny, and she

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Speaker 1: spoke with a slight lisp, so people had trouble believing

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Speaker 1: that she was really a college graduate. Repeatedly, she would

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Speaker 1: interview for jobs that she met the qualifications for, only

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Speaker 1: to be told that she did not actually meet them.

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Speaker 1: She was finally hired at Mount Cavalry child care Center

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Speaker 1: in Harlem, and she worked there from ninety to nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty three. She also started a master's degree program in

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Speaker 1: early childhood education at Columbia Teachers College. She took classes

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Speaker 1: at night while working at the child care center during

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Speaker 1: the day. In ninet forty nine, she married Conrad Chisholm,

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Speaker 1: who had emigrated to the United States from Jamaica. They

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Speaker 1: moved into a home near Shirley's parents. At first they

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Speaker 1: hoped to have children, but Shirley had two miscarriages, and

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Speaker 1: later on she said quote, if I had children, I

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Speaker 1: couldn't be out here doing what I'm doing now. She

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Speaker 1: also finished her master's degree in nineteen fifty one. Shirley

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Speaker 1: Chisholm had been active in the seventeenth Assembly District Democratic

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Speaker 1: Club since college, and in three she took part in

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Speaker 1: her first political campaign. A seat had opened up in

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Speaker 1: the second Municipal Court, which was local to where she lived.

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Speaker 1: Chisholm worked with the campaign to elect Louis S. Flag, Jr.

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Speaker 1: Who became Brooklyn's first black judge, which was a huge milestone.

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Speaker 1: Campaign workers tried to keep this momentum going by reforming

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Speaker 1: the Flag campaign into the Bedford Stuyvesant Political League or BSPL.

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Speaker 1: Chisholm became its vice president. Chisholm had noticed that in

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Speaker 1: all the political organizations she was part of, women were

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Speaker 1: really active of, but they were also relegated to tasks

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Speaker 1: like preparing food, cleaning up, and organizing events and raffles.

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Speaker 1: Many of the organizations were integrated, but essentially segregated themselves

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Speaker 1: when it came to things like seating arrangements. Chisholm thought

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Speaker 1: all of that needed to change, so she ran for

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Speaker 1: president of the BSPL. This led to problems because her

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Speaker 1: opponent was her long time mentor Mac Holder. She lost

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Speaker 1: this election, but the fact that she had run against

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Speaker 1: him at all led to a huge rift between the

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Speaker 1: two of them. In nineteen fifty eight, at the age

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Speaker 1: of thirty four, Chisholm left both the Seventeenth Assembly Districts

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Speaker 1: Democratic Club and the BSPL, feeling frustrated and like as

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Speaker 1: a woman, she didn't have any future and politics beyond

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Speaker 1: canvassing and cleaning up after meetings. In nineteen fifty nine,

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Speaker 1: Chisholm became a consultant to the New York City Division

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Speaker 1: of Daycare, and in nineteen sixty she returned to politics.

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Speaker 1: She and several others had been part of the Flag

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Speaker 1: Campaign started the Unity Democratic Club, which was racially integrated

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Speaker 1: and which had women in many prominent positions. This eased

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Speaker 1: some of Chisholm's frustrations, but at the same time, she

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Speaker 1: was still doing a lot of work campaigning for other people,

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Speaker 1: when what she really wanted was to be the one

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Speaker 1: running for office. So in nineteen sixty four, Chisholm told

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Speaker 1: the Unity Democrats that she wanted to run for state representative.

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Speaker 1: They nominated her, and she won her first primary and

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Speaker 1: general election. This wasn't, however, one of her many political firsts.

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Speaker 1: The first black woman elected to the New York State

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Speaker 1: Legislature was Bessie Buchanan ten years earlier. While a state

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Speaker 1: legislator in Albany, Chisholm introduced two major pieces of legislation

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Speaker 1: that really illustrate what she was trying to do in politics.

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Speaker 1: The first set up unemployment insurance and social security protections

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Speaker 1: for personal and domestic workers. This was something she'd seen

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Speaker 1: a need for both from her mother and from so

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Speaker 1: many other working women in their Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood. The

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Speaker 1: second was the SEEK Program, which stands for Search for Education,

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Speaker 1: Elevation and Knowledge, and it was something she'd seen a

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Speaker 1: need for during her own education. The SEEK program identified

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Speaker 1: black and Hispanic students for both financial and academic aid

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Speaker 1: to study at the City University of New York or

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Speaker 1: the State University of New York. This program still exists today,

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Speaker 1: and it works to bridge the gap for financially and

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Speaker 1: educationally underprivileged students. After a redistricting, Chisholm had to run

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Speaker 1: for re election in nineteen sixty five, even though her

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Speaker 1: first term wasn't over. She ran again in the regular

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Speaker 1: election cycle in nineteen sixty six and was once again reelected.

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Speaker 1: Her other legislation during those years as a state representative

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Speaker 1: included funding for daycare centers for the children of working

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Speaker 1: women and laws to ensure that teachers didn't lose their

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Speaker 1: seniority if they went on maternity leave. She also advocated

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Speaker 1: for the repeal of New York's laws criminalizing a board,

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Speaker 1: which happened in nineteen seventy after she had left office.

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Speaker 1: These years in the state capital were really challenging for Chisholm.

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Speaker 1: She spent about five days a week in Albany while

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Speaker 1: her husband was at home in Brooklyn, and her father

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Speaker 1: had also died the year before she was elected. She

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Speaker 1: and her father had been very close, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of her earliest political opinions had been informed through discussions

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Speaker 1: with him about figures like Marcus Garvey She had also

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Speaker 1: become somewhat estranged from her mother and sisters because she

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Speaker 1: inherited her father's money while they inherited the house. Her

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Speaker 1: isolation in Albany was professional as well as personal. There

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Speaker 1: were only a handful of women in the state legislature,

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Speaker 1: and she was the only black woman. It was socially

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Speaker 1: unacceptable for women to go out to bars, which is

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Speaker 1: what most of the men were doing. At the end

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Speaker 1: of the day. She frequently felt like she was being overlooked,

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Speaker 1: and this was a pattern in her political career, which

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Speaker 1: would lead her to say, quote, if they don't give

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Speaker 1: you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty eight, a court ordered reapportionment created a

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Speaker 1: new congressional district in New York and that was centered

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Speaker 1: on Shirley Chisholm's neighborhood of Bedford Stuyvesant. This newly created

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Speaker 1: thirteen district was majority black, and it also had a

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Speaker 1: large Puerto Rican population. It was pretty much taken for

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Speaker 1: granted that the representative elected from this new district would

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Speaker 1: be black, but it was also pretty much taken for

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Speaker 1: granted that it would be a man. Twelve people announced

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Speaker 1: their candidacy, and Chisholm was the only woman. It was

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Speaker 1: during this campaign that Chisholm started using the slogan unbought

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Speaker 1: and unbossed. She also repaired her relationship with mac Holder,

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Speaker 1: who got in touch and said that he wanted to

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Speaker 1: be part of her campaign. Chisholm one the Democratic primary

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Speaker 1: in this election by a huge margin, and then in

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Speaker 1: the general election, her opponent was James Farmer, who was

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Speaker 1: running on both the Republican and Liberal Party tickets. Farmer

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Speaker 1: was the former head of the Congress of Racial Acquire

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Speaker 1: or CORE, as well as one of its founders. He

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00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:07,200
Speaker 1: had also organized and participated in the Freedom Rides, and

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Speaker 1: he and a whole lot of other people thought his

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Speaker 1: election was a sure thing. Chisholm and Farmer agreed on

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Speaker 1: a lot of their key issues. They had essentially the

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00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:21,080
Speaker 1: same talking points on things like housing, employment, and education.

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Speaker 1: Both of them were also against the Vietnam War, so

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Speaker 1: Farmer's campaign was less about the issues and more about gender.

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Speaker 1: He framed himself as a powerful man whose voice was

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Speaker 1: needed in Washington and dismissed Chisholm as quote some school teacher.

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Speaker 1: Farmer wasn't the only person focused on gender and this

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Speaker 1: During the campaign, the New York Times ran this headline,

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Speaker 1: Farmer and woman in lively Bedford Stuyvesant Race. That makes

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Speaker 1: me kind of want to grind my teeth, but I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna Meanwhile, Chisholm and mac Holder worked day night to

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Speaker 1: canvas in campaign. They pointed out that Farmer lived in Harlem,

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Speaker 1: not Brooklyn. Chisholm was fluent in Spanish and reached directly

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Speaker 1: out to the district's Puerto Rican voters. She emphasized all

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Speaker 1: the work that she had done in Albany that directly

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Speaker 1: affected people in Brooklyn, especially women, and women registered voters

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00:17:19,800 --> 00:17:23,600
Speaker 1: outnumbered men as registered voters in the district. And the

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Speaker 1: middle of all this, though, Chisholm developed a fibroid tumor

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Speaker 1: and she had to have surgery, so she had to

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Speaker 1: take a break from the campaign. Farmer started playing up

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Speaker 1: her absence from the campaign trail until she finally defied

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Speaker 1: her doctor's orders. She went out on her front steps

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Speaker 1: with a bullhorn. This required her to walk down several

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Speaker 1: flights of steps first, and with this bullhorn she said,

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Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, this is fighting. Shirley Chisholm, and I

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Speaker 1: am up and around in spite of what people are saying.

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Speaker 1: Oh November five, Chisholm won the election against James Farmer

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Speaker 1: thirty four thousand, eight five votes to thir teen thousand,

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Speaker 1: seven hundred seventy seven. She became the first black woman

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Speaker 1: elected to Congress and only one of ten women in

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Speaker 1: Congress that year. The only other woman of color was

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Speaker 1: Patsy Mink of Hawaii, who was Japanese American and the

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Speaker 1: first woman of color elected to Congress. There were also

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Speaker 1: only ten black legislators in Congress that year. We will

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Speaker 1: talk about her time as a representative and her run

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Speaker 1: for the presidency after another sponsor break. When Shirley Chisholm

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Speaker 1: took office as a US Representative from New York number one,

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Speaker 1: she referred to herself as a black woman congressman, which

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Speaker 1: delights me. She also recognized the role that women had

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Speaker 1: played in getting her elected, and she recognized the fact

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Speaker 1: that women were largely being excluded from Washington politics. So

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Speaker 1: to try to start closing that gap in her term,

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Speaker 1: she hired only women for her staff. At the same time,

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Speaker 1: she knew that as a junior legislator, she really needed

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Speaker 1: experienced people to help her in order to be effective,

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Speaker 1: so a lot of the women she hired had served

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Speaker 1: on the staff of Joseph Resnick, who had elected not

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Speaker 1: to run for re election. Almost immediately after being sworn in,

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00:19:19,680 --> 00:19:23,960
Speaker 1: Chisholm started breaking protocol. In Washington, it was expected for

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Speaker 1: junior legislators to basically listen and not make waves. But

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Speaker 1: when she got her committee assignment, it was to the

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Speaker 1: Rural Development and Forestry Committee of the Agriculture Committee. This

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Speaker 1: was completely outside her experience and also not particularly relevant

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Speaker 1: to her constituents back in Brooklyn, New York. She thought

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Speaker 1: this was ridiculous, and she tried to be recognized to

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Speaker 1: speak to protest it, but every time she stood up,

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00:19:49,200 --> 00:19:53,640
Speaker 1: a more senior representative would stand up and be called on. Finally,

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Speaker 1: she walked down to the well at the floor of

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Speaker 1: the House, and when asked what she was doing down there,

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Speaker 1: she said, quote, I've been trying to get recognized for

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Speaker 1: half an hour, Mr Chairman, but evidently you were unable

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Speaker 1: to see me, so I came down to the well.

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Speaker 1: I would just like to tell the caucus why I

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Speaker 1: vehemently reject my committee assignment. This was really unheard of.

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Speaker 1: It was not done among junior legislators especially to do

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Speaker 1: something like this, but she was ultimately reassigned to the

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Speaker 1: Veterans Affairs Committee. This was definitely not her first choice,

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Speaker 1: but it was at least a place where she felt

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Speaker 1: like she could serve her constituents because there were plenty

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Speaker 1: of veterans living in Brooklyn. From there, Chisholm continued to

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Speaker 1: take bold, uncompromising steps. Her first speech in the House

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Speaker 1: was anti war, and she announced that she would vote

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Speaker 1: no on every budget bill until the country started using

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Speaker 1: its resources quote for people and peace, not profits in war.

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Speaker 1: She also faced a lot of sexism, like questions about

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Speaker 1: what her husband thought about what she was doing, and

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Speaker 1: a very like what does your husband think of all this? Darling?

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Speaker 1: In July of nine seventy, during hearings on a House

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Speaker 1: anti discrimination measure, Chisholm said quote, during my entire political life,

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Speaker 1: my sex has been a far greater handicap than my

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Speaker 1: skin pigmentation. From my earliest experience in ward political activity,

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Speaker 1: my chief obstacle was that I had to break through

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Speaker 1: the role men assigned women. A young woman in a

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Speaker 1: newspaper story I read somewhere defined that role beautifully. She

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Speaker 1: was talking about her experiences in the civil rights movement. Quote,

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Speaker 1: we found that the men made the policy and the

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Speaker 1: women made the peanut butter sandwiches. I would like to

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Speaker 1: comment on this quote really quickly before we move on,

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Speaker 1: because a lot of people take this out of context

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Speaker 1: and try to make it be a statement that in general,

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Speaker 1: in the world, gender is a bigger issue than race,

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Speaker 1: and that's really not what she was saying. She was

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Speaker 1: confining this to her political life very clearly, not like

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Speaker 1: a blanket statement about which thing, being a woman or

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00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:11,360
Speaker 1: being black is harder. Chisholm's agenda in Congress was ambitious,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't naive. She wanted more programs for the

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Speaker 1: poor and unemployed, more support for education, more funding for

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Speaker 1: health care, and protections for civil rights. She helped form

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Speaker 1: the Congressional Black Caucus and later the Congresswoman's Caucus, which

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Speaker 1: is now the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues. On August tenth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy she reintroduced the Equal Rights Amendment, which was

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Speaker 1: passed by Congress on March twenty two, nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 1: but was not ratified by the states. That could be

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Speaker 1: a whole other podcast, and maybe will be at some

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Speaker 1: point in the future. When Chisum ran for re election

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy, she won eighty two percent of the

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Speaker 1: vote than In nineteen seventy one, she published her autobiography,

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Speaker 1: which was titled Unbought and Unbossed. By the time Unbought

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Speaker 1: and unbod came out, Chisholm had already been thinking about

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Speaker 1: running for president. In November of nineteen seventy two, she

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00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:10,080
Speaker 1: told her staff that she planned to run. That same year,

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Speaker 1: she was appointed to the Education and Labor Committee, which

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Speaker 1: had been one of her top choices when she was

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00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:18,600
Speaker 1: first elected. Don't announced her intention to run for president

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Speaker 1: on January nine, seventy two at Conquered Baptist Church in Brooklyn,

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00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:26,399
Speaker 1: and her speech she said, quote, I am not the

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00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:29,360
Speaker 1: candidate of Black America, although I am black and proud.

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00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 1: I am not the candidate of the women's movement of

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Speaker 1: this country, although I am a woman and I am

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Speaker 1: equally proud of that. I am the candidate of the people,

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Speaker 1: and my presence before you now symbolizes a new era

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00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:45,159
Speaker 1: in American political history. With this announcement, Chisholm became the

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Speaker 1: first black woman to seek the nomination of the Democratic Party.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes you'll see her listed as the first woman of

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Speaker 1: any race to seek the nomination for any major political party,

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00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 1: but that is not accurate. Margaret Chase Smith ran for

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Speaker 1: president as a Republican in eighteen sixty four and had

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Speaker 1: twenty seven delegates at the Republican National Convention. Patsy Mink,

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Speaker 1: who we mentioned earlier, also ran as a Democrat in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. She had been invited by Oregon Democrats

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Speaker 1: to run on their ballot to draw attention to the

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Speaker 1: movement against the Vietnam War, and she withdrew after the

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Speaker 1: Oregon primary. This has been described as more of a

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00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:25,320
Speaker 1: symbolic campaign, but it still counts as it happened. In

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Speaker 1: her run for Congress. Chism faced all kinds of sexism

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Speaker 1: while running for president. Walter Cronkite started a news broadcast

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00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 1: about her candidacy by saying, a new hat, rather a bonnet,

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00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 1: has been thrown into the ring. She was also excluded

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Speaker 1: from televised debates and took her case to court, at

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Speaker 1: which point the FCC ordered that she be invited to

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Speaker 1: debate as well. And it wasn't just gendered language and

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00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:53,840
Speaker 1: exclusion from debates at least three confirmed assassination threats were

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00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: made against Chisholm. During the campaign. Someone stole stationary from

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00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: one of her opponents and ped up a terribly spelled,

430
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 1: badly written press release claiming that she had been in

431
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 1: a mental institution. This release went on with a whole

432
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:12,639
Speaker 1: series of completely fabricated claims and led to an FBI

433
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:18,159
Speaker 1: investigation as there was obviously racism and sexism all tied

434
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,880
Speaker 1: together in the response to her campaign. But in this campaign,

435
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:25,480
Speaker 1: Chisum really hoped to build a coalition among anyone who

436
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: was disenfranchised or marginalized, not just black people and not

437
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:32,399
Speaker 1: just women. She was also vocal in her support of

438
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: equal rights for Hispanics and Latinos, as well as gay

439
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 1: people and Indigenous people. She had called to have a

440
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: Native person leading the Department of the Interior, which oversees

441
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and she did get a

442
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:47,879
Speaker 1: lot of grassroots support. Many of the people who worked

443
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:51,200
Speaker 1: on her campaign were first time participants in this process.

444
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:53,919
Speaker 1: Whenever people asked her what they needed to do to

445
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,159
Speaker 1: get involved, she would tell them the first thing was

446
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: to register to vote, and this was just a few

447
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 1: years after the voting rights Act of nineteen sixty five

448
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: outlawed voting discrimination based on race. But her efforts on

449
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: the campaign were really hampered by a lack of money

450
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 1: and by disorganization from within the campaign. She had some

451
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 1: high profile celebrity backers like Harry Belafonte and Aucie Davis,

452
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: but other people weren't as enthusiastic even when they said

453
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 1: they were on her side. Glorias steinhum ran as one

454
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 1: of her delegates in the New York primary, but kept

455
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 1: doing this kind of half hearted endorsement, saying that she

456
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 1: was for surely Chisholm, but thought George McGovern was the

457
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: best of the male candidates. Tis Um finally told her

458
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:39,399
Speaker 1: to either endorse McGovern or her not do this weird

459
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:42,120
Speaker 1: in between thing, and she said, quote, don't do me

460
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 1: any favors by giving me this semi endorsement. I do

461
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 1: not need this kind of help. She also faced criticism

462
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 1: after candidate George Wallace was shot on May fifteen, nineteen

463
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 1: seventy two. We've done a podcast on Wallace before, in

464
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 1: case you needed any of that story. Uh. He was

465
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: notorious for his youth on segregation and race, although during

466
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:06,120
Speaker 1: this campaign he announced that he would no longer support segregation.

467
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 1: Chisholm visited him in the hospital, and people were appalled,

468
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: but she felt like visiting was just the humane thing

469
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:15,439
Speaker 1: to do, and she told him, quote, you and I

470
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: don't agree, but you have been shot and I might

471
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: be shot, and we are both children of American democracy,

472
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 1: so I wanted to come and see you. The Democratic

473
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: National Convention that year started on July temp and by

474
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 1: that time it was absolutely clear that there was no

475
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 1: way Chisholm was going to get the party's nomination. Instead,

476
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: she hoped to have enough delegates to influence the party

477
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:39,399
Speaker 1: platform that would be created at the convention. She wound

478
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 1: up with a hundred and fifty two delegates, which is

479
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 1: about ten percent of the total after being on the

480
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 1: ballot in twelve states. That was more than some of

481
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:49,920
Speaker 1: the other candidates, but not enough to have an impact

482
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 1: on the party platform or her much bigger goal of

483
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 1: naming a black candidate as the vice presidential running met.

484
00:27:56,840 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: She was also really disillusioned by how the process felt

485
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: more like it was about candidates making deals with one

486
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:05,640
Speaker 1: another for their delegates than it was about candidates trying

487
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 1: to do right by the voters. But a more personal

488
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: disappointment was that her friend and colleague Ron Delum's of

489
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 1: the Congressional Black Caucus, was supposed to be the person

490
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,640
Speaker 1: to nominate her at the convention, but he backed out

491
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: at the last minute. Her friend Percy Sutton did it instead.

492
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 1: On the last night of the convention, Shirley Chisholm gave

493
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: a speech and which she said she would support the

494
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:32,640
Speaker 1: Democratic Party nominee George McGovern, But before she could give

495
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 1: that speech, she got a lengthy standing ovation. Even though

496
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 1: there were so many disappointments at the Democratic National Convention,

497
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: Chisholm insisted that she did not regret her decision to run.

498
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 1: She said, I ran because somebody had to do it first.

499
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 1: I ran because most people thought the country was not

500
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 1: ready for a black candidate, not ready for a woman candidate. Someday.

501
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 1: It was time in nineteen two to make that someday come.

502
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: Later on, she described her into the sea as not

503
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 1: exactly opening the door for other women and people of color,

504
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 1: but at least leaving the door ajar. In the nineteen

505
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: seventy two election, George McGovern was defeated colossally by incumbent

506
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon and just a huge landslide like an unmatched landslide.

507
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: We all know how that worked out. Though, Chisholm returned

508
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 1: to her seat in the House of Representatives, and she

509
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 1: spent seven total terms in the House. In nineteen seventy five,

510
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: she co sponsored a bill to expand the federal school

511
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 1: lunch program, and then she led the representatives to overturn

512
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: President Gerald Ford's veto of it. In nineteen seventy seven,

513
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: she also became part of the House Rules Committee. She

514
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: was the first black woman to be on that committee.

515
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: In her personal life, she and Conrad Chisom divorced in

516
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:50,239
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven and she remarried Arthur Hardwick Jr. Who

517
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 1: lived in Buffalo. And her later terms in the House

518
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: of Representatives, Chisholm didn't defy protocol in the way she

519
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 1: had in her first and over the years the shifts

520
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: started to draw more and more scrutiny. What she saw

521
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 1: as an attempt for consensus building was seen as being

522
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 1: too conciliatory and not ambitious enough. She was also criticized

523
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 1: for increasing time away from Washington. Some of this was

524
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 1: to go on speaking tours, and some of it was

525
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: to be with her second husband. After he was permanently

526
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 1: and seriously injured in a car accident. All of this

527
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: influenced her decision not to seek re election in nineteen two,

528
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: but she was also frustrated by feeling like she was

529
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 1: less and less able to really serve her constituents. Some

530
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: of this was due to the shifting political climate of

531
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,959
Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties. Her career

532
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: had really been focused on helping the needy and protecting

533
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 1: the marginalized, things like an increased minimum wage, unions for

534
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 1: domestic workers, racial equality, gay rights, and daycare for working

535
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 1: mothers and people on public assistance. But it was harder

536
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 1: and harder to get legislation like that past. On top

537
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 1: of that, for a number of economic and social reasons,

538
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 1: voters in her district and in similar districts all around

539
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 1: the country were becoming less and less engaged and politically active,

540
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 1: and that was making it a lot more difficult for

541
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: her to secure federal funds that would benefit them. After

542
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 1: retiring from politics, Chisholm became Sherrington Professor of Politics at

543
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 1: Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She commuted back and forth

544
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:26,840
Speaker 1: between the college and Buffalo, where she and her husband

545
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 1: lived and she helped found the National Political Congress of

546
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: Black Women, and she worked on Jesse Jackson's campaign for

547
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: the presidency in ninety four and her husband, Arthur died

548
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 1: in nine In Shirley Chisholm was offered the position of

549
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 1: ambassador to Jamaica, but she turned it down because her

550
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: health was not good anymore. She died on January one

551
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: of two thousand five at the age of eighty, and

552
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 1: November of President Barack Obama posthumously awarded her the Presidential

553
00:31:57,320 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: Medal of Freedom. Later on in her life, she said

554
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 1: that she didn't want to be remembered just as a

555
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: member of Congress or a candidate for president, but as

556
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 1: in her own words, a woman who fought for change

557
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century, and that is Shirley Chisholm. Heay

558
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:20,959
Speaker 1: so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this

559
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: episode is out of the archive, if you heard an

560
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 1: email address or a Facebook U r L or something

561
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: similar over the course of the show, that could be

562
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 1: obsolete now. Our current email address is History Podcast at

563
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: I Heart radio dot com. Our old health stuff works

564
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 1: email address no longer works, and you can find us

565
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 1: all over social media at Missed in History and you

566
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 1: can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts,

567
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, and wherever else you listen

568
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 1: to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a

569
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:57,960
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I

570
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or

571
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H