Shirley Chisholm Women of Distinction Awards honor accomplishments and leadership
Brooklyn Pubic Library Brings Together 7 Women Who Exemplify Chisholm’s Epitaph: ‘Unbowed & Unbossed!’
“Our confrontation must be against women in the kitchen. Our confrontation must be against blacks at the back door and women at the bedroom door. Those bad, old days are dead.” Thus spoke U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm some 35 years ago in a speech titled “A Coalition of Conscience.” Were Chisholm — the first African-American woman elected to Congress, and the first woman to seek a major party’s nomination for president of the U.S. — to have foreseen the difficulties her spiritual sisters continue to have in fulfilling her goals — that the “bad, old days” aren’t quite dead as she hoped — would she have continued her quest to create a color-blind and gender-neutral playing field?
Unquestionably yes! answered the activists, political and community leaders gathered Friday night at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Dweck Auditorium to bestow Shirley Chisholm Women of Distinction awards on seven women whose efforts made special impact in their communities. Their roles ranged from NYPD 63rd Precinct Community Affairs Bureau officer to the director of Communities United for Police Reform.
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.