Ramblings' Journal

Shirley Chisholm has died

Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to be elected to Congress has died.

Chisholm went to the Hill when Richard Nixon was elected, and stayed until two years into the Reagan Administration. She was a tireless advocate for women and minorities, and though a liberal, a tough yet fair woman fo whose like -- from either side of the aisle -- we need to see more of.

Chisholm, who was raised in a predominantly black New York City neighborhood and was elected to the U.S. House in 1968, was a riveting speaker who often criticized Congress as being too clubby and unresponsive.

"My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn't always discuss for reasons of political expediency," she told voters.

She ran for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1972. When rival candidate and ideological opposite George Wallace was shot, she visited him in the hospital — an act that appalled her followers.

"He said, `What are your people going to say?' I said: `I know what they're going to say. But I wouldn't want what happened to you to happen to anyone.' He cried and cried," she recalled.

And when she needed support to extend the minimum wage to domestic workers two years later, it was Wallace who got her the votes from Southern members of Congress.

In more recent years, Chisholm had retired to Daytona Beach, FL. Shirley Chisholm was 80 years old.

Posted by mhking at January 2, 2005 11:56 PM