Meet Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Chisholm represented the Brooklyn experience. Born in the U.S. of immigrant parents, she lived in the Caribbean as a child, returned to Brooklyn as a teenager, and graduated in 1947 from Brooklyn College. Immediately, she plunged into activism with a variety of educational, religious, immigrant, community, political, and social organizations. In 1964, she was elected to the New York State Assembly and in 1968 was the first African American woman elected to Congress (from Brooklyn’s Twelfth Congressional District). At the time, her district was 70 percent female, and highly organized. Her activism embodied almost every aspect of her constituents’ lives: home, church, community, school, health, higher education, internationalism, connections to the Caribbean community, labor, and civil and women’s rights. This activism continues today, reflecting the multiplicity of women’s experiences in Brooklyn, galvanized by the revival of feminism, and enriched by the diversity of women’s lives.
