User:KaiAbiola/Shirley Chisholm

The article's content is relevant to the topic, but I would like to take a deeper dive into some specific aspects of Shirley Chisholm's life and make sure that the underdeveloped sections become more developed. I would also like to investigate her role in the fight for the vote for women and potentially add it to her existing page. Additionally, I would like to take a look and see if each claim is reliably backed up by a source and cited properly.

Bibliography:

https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/C/CHISHOLM,-Shirley-Anita-(C000371)/

https://www.psc-cuny.org/clarion/june-2012/shirley-chisholm-cuny-and-us-history

https://www.c-span.org/video/?456730-2/shirley-chisholm

First Article Addition

Furthermore, Chisholm was the sole woman in the freshman class that year.

Pulling new info from this source for the early life and education section:

https://www.psc-cuny.org/clarion/june-2012/shirley-chisholm-cuny-and-us-history

Early life and education
Shirley Anita St. Hill was born on November 30, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York, to immigrant parents from the Caribbean region. She had three younger sisters, two born within three years after St. Hill, one later. Their father, Charles Christopher St. Hill, was born in British Guiana, lived in Barbados for a while, and then arrived in the United States via Antilla, Cuba, on April 10, 1923, aboard the S.S. Munamar in New York City. Their mother, Ruby Seale, was born in Christ Church, Barbados, and arrived in New York City aboard the S.S. Pocone on March 8, 1921.

Her father was a black laborer who sometimes worked in a factory that made burlap bags, but when he could not find factory employment instead worked as a baker's helper, while her mother was a skilled seamstress and domestic worker who had trouble working and raising the children at the same time. As a consequence, in November 1929 when St. Hill turned five, she and her two sisters were sent to Barbados on the S.S. Vulcana to live with their maternal grandmother, Emaline Seale. There they lived on the grandmother's farm in the Vauxhall village in Christ Church, where she attended a one-room schoolhouse that took education seriously. She did not return to the United States until May 19, 1934, aboard the SS Nerissa in New York. As a result, St. Hill spoke with a recognizable West Indian accent throughout her life. In her 1970 autobiography Unbought and Unbossed, she wrote: "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British-style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason." As a result of her time on the island, and regardless of her U.S. birth, St. Hill would always consider herself a Barbadian American. Regarding the role of her grandmother, she later said, "Granny gave me strength, dignity, and love. I learned from an early age that I was somebody. I didn't need the black revolution to tell me that."

Beginning in 1939, St. Hill attended Girls' High School in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, a highly regarded, integrated school that attracted girls from throughout Brooklyn. St. Hill earned her Bachelor of Arts from Brooklyn College in 1946, where she won prizes for her debating skills. In addition, during her time at Brooklyn College, she was a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and the Harriet Tubman Society. As a member of the Harriet Tubman Society, Chisholm advocated for inclusion, specifically in terms of the integration of black soldiers in the military during World War II, the addition of courses that focused on African American history, and the involvement of more women in the student government. However, this was not her first introduction to activism or politics. Growing up, Chisholm was surrounded by politics as her father was an avid supporter of Marcus Garvey and a dedicated supporter of the rights of trade union members. Also, she was no stranger to seeing her community advocate for their rights as she witnessed the Barbados workers' and anti-colonial independence movements.

St. Hill met Conrad O. Chisholm in the late 1940s. He had migrated to the U.S. from Jamaica in 1946 and later became a private investigator who specialized in negligence-based lawsuits. They married in 1949 in a large West Indian-style wedding.

Chisholm taught in a nursery school while furthering her education, earning her MA in elementary education from Teachers College at Columbia University in 1952.

Career as educator
From 1953 to 1959, she was director of the Friends Day Nursery in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and of the Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center in lower Manhattan. From 1959 to 1964, she was an educational consultant for the Division of Day Care. She became known as an authority on issues involving early education and child welfare.

Running a daycare center got her interested in local politics, and during this time she formed the basis of her political career, working as a volunteer for white-dominated political clubs in Brooklyn, like the Brooklyn Democratic Clubs, and with the Bedford-Stuyvesant Political League, and the League of Women Voters. With the Political League, she was part of a committee that chose the recipient of its annual Brotherhood Award. She also was a representative of the Brooklyn branch of the National Association of College Women. Furthermore, within the political organizations she joined, Chisholm sought to make meaningful changes to the structure and make-up of the organizations, specifically the Brooklyn Democratic Clubs, which resulted in her being able to recruit more people of color into the 17th District Club and, thus, local politics.

I wanted to add to this section regarding something Barbara Winslow mentioned about Chisholm's legacy in this interview, specifically about wearing hats in Congress; however, I could not find another source to back this info up, so until then I am not able to include it quite yet. https://www.c-span.org/video/?456730-2/shirley-chisholm

Legacy
In 1984, The National Black Women's Political Caucus was established during the presidential campaign of Geraldine Ferraro. African American women from various political organizations convened to set forth a political agenda emphasizing the needs of women of African descent. Chisholm was chosen as its first chair.

In February 2005, Shirley Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed, a documentary film, aired on U.S public television. It chronicled Chisholm's 1972 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. It was directed and produced by independent African-American filmmaker Shola Lynch. The film was featured at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004. On April 9, 2006, the film was announced as a winner of a Peabody Award.

In 2014, the first adult biography of Chisholm was published, Shirley Chisholm: Catalyst for Change, by Brooklyn College history professor Barbara Winslow, who was also the founder and first director of the Shirley Chisholm Project. Until then, only several juvenile biographies had appeared.

Chisholm's speech "For the Equal Rights Amendment", given in 1970, is listed as in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century (listed by rank).

Monuments
The Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women's Activism (formerly known as the Shirley Chisholm Center for Research) exists at Brooklyn College to promote research projects and programs on women and to preserve the legacy of Chisholm. The Chisholm Project also houses an archive as part of the Chisholm Papers in the college library Special Collections.

In January 2018, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his intent to build the Shirley Chisholm State Park, a 407 acre state park along 3.5 mi of the Jamaica Bay coastline, adjoining the Pennsylvania Avenue and Fountain Avenue landfills south of Spring Creek Park's Gateway Center section. The state park was dedicated to Chisholm that September. The park opened to the public on July 2, 2019.

A memorial monument of Chisholm is planned for the entrance to Prospect Park in Brooklyn by Parkside Avenue station, designed by artists Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous.

Political
Chisholm's legacy came into renewed prominence during the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton staged their historic "firsts" battle – where the victor would either be the first major party African-American nominee, or the first woman nominee – with at least one observer crediting Chisholm's 1972 campaign as having paved the way for both of them.

Chisholm has been a major influence on other women of color in politics, among them California Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who stated in a 2017 interview that Chisholm had a profound impact on her career.

Kamala Harris recognized Chisholm's presidential campaign by using a similar color scheme and typography in her own 2020 presidential campaign's promotional materials and logo. That red-and-yellow design could be seen in a video announcing Harris's run for president. Harris launched her presidential campaign forty-seven years to the day after Chisholm's presidential campaign.