Shirley Chisholm predicted this political moment in 1969
Women like Chisholm blazed a trail so that Kamala Harris didn't have to
“I believe this country will be saved by women and students, and if the women come together in spite of racial differences, class differences, economic differences and back a strong woman, I could see this happening in about 70 to 75 years.”
At the Democratic National Convention last week, I was invited to participate on a panel about how, back in 1969, Shirley Chisholm predicted the candidacy—and, God willing, the election—of America’s first woman President, Kamala Harris.
Chisholm, born to immigrant parents from Guyana and Barbados in Brooklyn, graduated from Brooklyn College and then worked as a teacher while earning a master’s degree from Columbia University. In 1964, she was elected to represent the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood where she grew up in the state legislature, becoming only the second Black representative in the New York State Legislature. In 1968, she became the first Black woman elected to Congress.
Chisholm was always at the vanguard of activism and feminism during her career, which spanned the late 60s through to the early 80s. Nicknamed “Fighting Shirley,” Chisholm became the first Black major-party candidate in the 1972 presidential race, and the first Black person and woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Her political platform was ahead of its time, too: Chisholm called for universal access to childcare, a basic income, and the end of special interest money in politics.
The DNC panel I was on focused specifically on how Chisholm predicted in 1969 when and how the first woman would be elected President in America. While being interviewed on television by journalist David Frost, he asked Chisholm whether she believed there would ever be a woman President of the United States. Still a freshman in Congress, Rep. Shirley Chisholm said, “I believe this country will be saved by women and students, and if the women come together in spite of racial differences, class differences, economic differences and back a strong woman, I could see this happening in about 70 to 75 years.”
Three years later, in 1972, Chisholm decided to run for President herself, using the slogan "Unbought and unbossed," which played on the racism and sexism she faced at every turn. Chisholm was prevented from participating in televised primary debates, and then was only permitted to give one speech after taking legal action. Her Black male colleagues in Congress and the civil rights movement were furious because they thought the honor of becoming the first Black presidential candidate should go to a man. And even the National Women’s Political Caucus, which Chisholm co-founded, would not endorse her because its leaders were trying to build political clout for women’s issues, and they knew she couldn’t win.
Ultimately, Chisholm campaigned in 12 primaries and received 151.95 delegate votes at the DNC in Miami in 1972. She earned just 2.7 percent of the popular vote and 152 delegates at the Democratic convention in Miami Beach. And while her candidacy may not have been politically practical, it helped expose the entrenched culture of racism and sexism in American politics, and began to blaze the trail for another woman—perhaps Kamala Harris—to eventually be elected President.
Chisholm summarized why she ran for office in her book The Good Fight, “All the odds had been against [winning], right up to the end. I never blamed anyone for doubting. The Presidency is for white males. No one was ready to take a black woman seriously as a candidate. It was not time yet for a black to run, let alone a woman, and certainly not for someone who was both. Someday . . . but not yet. Someday the country would be ready.”
Chisholm ran even though she knew the country wasn’t ready to elect her so that it might be ready in the future. Thanks to the trail blazed by women like Chisholm, including Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman nominated for vice president by a major U.S. party, and Hillary Clinton, the first woman to be nominated for president by a major political party and then win the popular vote (while still losing the election), 55 years later, we are finally on the precipice of electing a woman President.
“All the odds had been against [winning], right up to the end. I never blamed anyone for doubting. The Presidency is for white males. No one was ready to take a black woman seriously as a candidate. It was not time yet for a black to run, let alone a woman, and certainly not for someone who was both. Someday . . . but not yet. Someday the country would be ready.”
History is a relay race, and for over 50 years, women have passed the torch to the next standard bearer over and over again, knowing they likely wouldn’t win their race, but that they would make it easier for the next woman to win. Because of those women who ran and lost, most people won’t dismiss Harris as being unqualified; they won’t get away with mocking her voice, body, clothing, or hairstyles; and she won’t be disqualified for her gender and ethnicity.
One of the women on the DNC panel quoted Minyon Moore, a veteran Democratic strategist and chair of this year’s DNC, as saying after Clinton lost in 2016, “The person who blazes the trail also has to go through the fire…” Because these women blazed the trail, Harris isn’t having to do both at the same time.
This year’s presidential election coincides with what would have been Chisholm’s 100th birthday, commemorated by an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. Called “Changing the Face of Democracy: Shirley Chisholm at 100,” the exhibit showcases the native Brooklynite’s life and political legacy until she died in 2005 at 80. It opened in July and is on view through July 2025.
Shirley ran for president the year I turned 18 and became eligible to vote. It was so exciting, not only to have a woman, but a black woman in the race. It was epic and historical and precedent setting. Then Nixon was elected, and we started this long downhill slide to where we are now. After 52 years, we’re finally getting our chance to turn it around!
Fascinating