The life and legacy of Shirley Chisholm — the groundbreaking politician who made history in 1968 as the first Black woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress — will now be officially celebrated every year in her native New York City.
On Monday, the City Council Committee on Civil and Human Rights voted to designate her birthday, Nov. 30, as Shirley Chisholm Day.
“As a native New Yorker, Shirley Chisholm dedicated much of her life to serving the people of New York City,” the chair of the committee, Councilmember Nantasha Williams, said shortly before the vote. “Seeing as her birthday is November 30, there would be no better date to celebrate her contribution to this great city as an educator, activist and elected official.”
The oldest of four daughters of immigrants, Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was born in Brooklyn on Nov. 30, 1924 and attended Brooklyn Girls’ High before graduating from Brooklyn College cum laude in 1946.
Despite encouragement from her teachers to get into politics, Chisholm was well aware of the difficulties she would encounter being both Black and female, which she called a “double handicap,” according to the National Women’s History Museum.
But that didn’t stop the nursery school teacher from continuing to push the boundaries that would eventually change the course of American politics, opening the doors to generations to come and paving the way for people like Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Shirley Chisholm created a path for me and for so many others,” Harris wrote on social media on Jan. 16, 2021 after winning her historic bid for second-in-command. “Today, I’m thinking about her inspirational words: “I am, and always will be a catalyst for change.”
In 1964, the then-39-year-old became only the second Black lawmaker elected to the New York State Legislature after Edward Austin Johnson, who was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1917.
Her outspoken advocacy for women and minorities led the Democrat to Congress just four years later.
Chisholm, who represented an area in Brooklyn that included Bedford–Stuyvesant for seven terms — from 1969 to 1983 — also became the first Black candidate to seek a presidential nomination from a major party in 1972.
Councilmember Farah Louis, who sponsored the legislation, said the resolution “is more than a recognition — but an affirmation of the contribution” of Chisholm.
She “unlocked and opened doors for generations of political leaders who were excluded simply for being Black,” Louis said.
