Newly-elected Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm at her office in Washington, DC, getting an orchid corsage pinned on her jacket from her husband Conrad, by UPI Telephoto/New York Bureau
To Use This Document
With Your Students
Date
January 3, 1969
Description
Photograph of a smiling Shirley Chisholm, preparing to leave her office at Longworth House Office Building, as her husband Conrad pins a corsage on her. Chisholm wears a dark jacket with two-tone lapel collar, with a white blouse below. A brooch in a feline motif is attached to her blouse. She also wears her trademark cat eye glasses and pearl earrings. Conrad is seen at side angle, wearing a suit and tie. Born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents from the Caribbean, and fluent in Spanish, Shirley Chisholm (1924–2005) represented a wide swath of New Yorkers who had never before seen themselves in elected positions. She earned a master’s degree in early childhood education from Columbia University and worked as a preschool teacher, eventually becoming a consultant to the New York Division of Day Care. Acutely aware of both racial and gender inequality, she became active in the League of Women Voters and NAACP before finally deciding to run for office. Representing her home neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Chisholm became the second African American to serve in the NYS Legislature in 1964, and in 1968, became the first Black woman to sit in Congress, where she served seven terms in the US House of Representatives. In 1972, she was the first woman and the first Black candidate to run for President for a major party. Seeking the Democratic nomination, she ran in 12 primaries under the slogan “unbought and unbossed.” In her 1973 book The Good Fight, she stated, “I ran for the Presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.”
Type
Photograph
Region
Long Island
Era
Contemporary United States
Topic
African Americans, Elections, Women
Repository
Identifier
2024.004.0003
Source
Long Island Museum, Stony Brook, NY, Gift of Joshua Ruff, 2023
Rights
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