Shirley Chisholm: "Unbought and Unbossed"

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (born 30 November 1924)

In 1972, Shirley Chisolm became the first African-American woman representing a major political party to run for the office of President of the United States. (Three women sought to become the Democratic party's candidate for president that year: Bella Abzug, Patsy Mink, and Chisolm.)

Shirley Chisholm in 1972,
the year she ran for President
of the United States

Shirley Anita St. Hill was daughter of Caribbean immigrants, her father, Charles St. Hill, born in British Guiana, her mother, Ruby Seale, in Barbados. The couple immigrated to the United States in 1923, their daughter born in Brooklyn the next year. 

Her parents sent Shirley Anita St. Hill to Barbados when she was three so that she could receive the best possible education--as she noted, "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British-style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason." 

She returned to the United States in May 1934, to Bedford-Stuyvesant, where her parents had settled and where she would attend the prestigious Girls' High School. After graduating from Brooklyn College in 1946, she began her professional life as a nursery school teacher while she was enrolled in the M.A. program at Columbia.

In 1949, she married Conrad Chisholm, earned her Columbia M.A. in 1952, and worked for New York City's Division of Day Care until 1964, when her life changed.

In 1964, Chisholm ran for state office and went to Albany, where she became the second African-American woman to become a state member of the New York state legislature. After a court-ordered redistricting, Chisolm ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representative in 1968--her campaign slogan was "unbought and unbossed." 

Only two African Americans were elected to Ninety-First Congress (1969-1971), bringing the total of African Americans in the House to nine. Shirley Chisholm was the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. House--where she would serve for seven terms. 

A 1972 campaign button.

Chisholm had a long and influential role in the House, where she served until 1983, and I will link you here to here to the U.S. House of Representatives History, Art & Archives page for her official biography, details of her committee assignments, and a detailed bibliography (see the update, below).

But I thought that what might be fun to do today, on the anniversary of Chisolm's birth, is to add a list of women who preceded her in running for the office of president:

• Victoria Woodhull, as we have seen, ran in 1872 as a member of the Equal Rights Party; she ran again in as a member of the Humanitarian Party in 1892;
• Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood also ran for president twice, in 1884 and in 1888, both times as a member of the National Equal Rights Party; 
• Margaret Chase Smith ran for president in 1964 as a member of the Republican Party, the first woman to have her name placed in nomination at a national nominating convention (she had received primary votes in New Hampshire, Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas, and Oregon, among others, and she gained twenty-seven first ballot votes at the Republican National Convention--after the first ballot, she withdrew her name from consideration); 
• Charlene Mitchell was the Communist Party candidate in 1968, thus becoming the first African-American woman nominated for the office of President (she was on the ballot in only two states, winning fewer than 1,000 votes);
• And then, as noted above, there was 1972: Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisolm, and Patsy Mink, all running as Democrats. In that same year, Linda Jenness was the nominee for the Socialist Workers Party. 

Chisolm died on 1 January 2005. There are a number of biographies, but why not read her autobiography, recently published in a fortieth-anniversary edition: its title is taken from her original campaign slogan, Unbought and Unbossed.

Update, 7 July 2019: A number of commemorations are planned for the fiftieth-anniversary of Shirley Chisholm's service in the U.S. Congress--a feature film, a TV series, a public monument, among other things. You may want to check out Jennifer Steinhauer's "2019 Belongs to Shirley Chisholm," published in the New York Times. There are lots of great photos too!

Update, 30 November 2025: I have been unable to load Chisolm’s House of Representatives page—lord knows what fuckery the Trump White House has been up to. I have linked you here to the page as preserved by the Internet Archive. 

Battling Bella

Bella Abzug (died 31 March 1998)

A 1971 photo of Bella Abzug
in one of her trademark hats

Political activist, critical voice in the second-wave feminist movement, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and notable hat-wearer, Bella Abzug is the woman who memorably stated, in her 1970 political campaign, "This woman's place is in the House—the House of Representatives."

Born in 1920, the same year women in the U.S. finally achieved the right to vote, Abzug dedicated her life to social and political activism. Asked about why she always wore a hat, Abzug once explained, "I began wearing hats as a young lawyer because it helped me to establish my professional identity. Before that, whenever I was at a meeting, someone would ask me to get coffee."

If you want to get a sense of Bella Abzug, check out the short video, "Bella Abzug: In Her Own Words." There are lots of great books, but you might start with this one, an oral history edited by Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom: Bella Abzug: How One Tough Broad from the Bronx Fought Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy, Pissed Off Jimmy Carter, Battled for the Rights of Women and Workers, Rallied against War and for the Planet, and Shook Up Politics Along the Way.

Some Memorable, Prescient, and Important Abzug Quotations

• I've been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prize fighter, a man-hater, you name it. They call me Battling Bella, Mother Courage, and a Jewish mother with more complaints than Portnoy.
• Maybe we weren't at the Last Supper, but we're certainly going to be at the next one.
• They used to give us a day--it was called International Women's Day. In 1975 they gave us a year, the Year of the Woman. Then from 1975 to 1985 they gave us a decade, the Decade of the Woman. I said at the time, who knows, if we behave they may let us into the whole thing. Well, we didn't behave and here we are.
• The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of your chromosomes.
• Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.
• Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.
• We are coming down from our pedestal and up from the laundry room. We want an equal share in government and we mean to get it.
• I am not elevating women to sainthood, nor am I suggesting that all women share the same views, or that all women are good and all men bad.
• If we get a government that reflects more of what this country is really about, we can turn the century--and the economy--around.
• Abortion doesn't belong in the political arena. It's a private right, like many other rights concerning the family.
• I prefer the word "homemaker" because "housewife" always implies that there may be a wife someplace else.
• The establishment is made up of little men, very frightened.
• All of the men on my staff can type.
• I am not being facetious when I say that the real enemies in this country are the Pentagon and its pals in big business.
• The inside operation of Congress -- the deals, the compromises, the selling out, the co-opting, the unprincipled manipulating, the self-serving career-building -- is a story of such monumental decadence that I believe if people find out about it they will demand an end to it.

From the left, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisolm (speaking),
Gracia Molina de Pick, Betty Friedan, and LaDonna Harris

Update, 17 March 2026: The PBS American Masters series premiered a new episode about Bella Abzug, "Bella! This Woman's Place Is in the House." It's an excellent profile and begins with a fascinating account from early in her career. After her first term, in which she defeated a long-time incumbent for  her district, Abzug was "redistricted" out of her seat in 1972--asked whether she was "axed" because she was  "outspoken and relentless," she replied that it was because she was a woman who refused to believe that women should be "invisible in government." As she points out, if she allowed herself to be eliminated, there would only be eleven women among the 435 members of the House of Representatives. 

Also, a wonderful cameo of Maxine Waters, who says, "I was bold because of Bella." And it's fun to see Abzug sparring with George H. W. Bush, then director of the CIA, in a Congressional hearing. Guess who's squirming?

For more information, click here. The American Masters site includes biographical information, an analysis of the importance of her career for women who came after her, and several video features, including one with Lily Tomlin, who campaigned for Abzug. 

Although, while watching this, I find myself in despair and inspired . . .