Shirley Chisholm Research Paper

Unbossed and Unbought: The Legacy of Shirley Chisholm United States Representative Barbara Lee of California once boldly claimed that “without Shirley Chisholm, we would not even think it possible for the first Black woman to serve as vice president of the United States. Nor would we have elected the first African American man as. president of the United States.” Shirley Chisholm made waves in the sociopolitical atmosphere of the United States when she became the first Black woman to be elected to Congress. These waves became even larger when Chisholm announced her campaign for the 1972 Presidential election. Chisholm’s mere existence as a politician caused extreme controversy and tense national conversation. Her emergence forced the United …show more content…
(“Race, Revolution, and Women” 20) Chisholm’s breakthrough campaign for Congress was something that the United States had never seen before. Moreover, many people discredited Chisholm’s campaign on the basis of her previous career, as a schoolteacher at child care centers in Brooklyn. Many people assumed that Chisholm’s intelligence and drive would not be enough for a Congresswoman, seeing as she only had experience in typical female careers. Despite her many accomplishments and ideas that disproved this theory, sexism remained as an obstacle for her and would remain as an obstacle for the entirety of her life. Chisholm experienced a unique form of sexism in comparison to most other female politicians. Brown offers a deeper explanation of this in her analysis of Chisholm’s life: “She experienced a unique type of intra-racial sexism from black male constituents and political opponents. Racism and sexism often interact in complex ways and conspire to restrain black women’s socio-political agency” (1018). Misogyny was especially prevalent and unbridled in political atmospheres, specifically the higher governmental offices in the United

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Shirley Chisholm Research Paper