On November 5, 1968, Shirley Chisholm was the first black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representa-tives. She was born on Nov. 24, 1924 to Quaker parents. At the age of two she moved with her family from Brooklyn to Barbados, her mother’s native country. She remained there until the age of 10; her father was from Guyana.

She received her BA from Brooklyn College and an MA from Columbia University. In 1964 she was elected to the N.Y. State Assembly as a Democrat from Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant.

She went on to serve seven terms in the House of Representatives, supporting legislation promoting education, employment, and the rights of Haitian refugees. She served on the House Rules Committee, and was the secretary of the House Democratic Caucus. She accomplished another first when she sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, becoming the first major party black candidate to do so.

Due partly to discouragement over President Ronald Reagan’s policies, Chisholm retired from Congress in 1982. In the same year she was appointed to the Purington Chair at Mount Holyoke College.

She later led the National Political Congress of Black Women and was the keynote speaker at the National Women’s Political Caucus. She is the author of Unbought and Unbossed (’70) and The Good Fight (’73). Chisholm died on Jan. 1, 2005.

— Vernon Parker

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