Shirley Chisholm, Paving the Way to Gender Equality

By Norman Franklin

Norman Franklin

The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) tracks the progress of gender equality in government services. Women are evolving as a new power dynamic.

CAWP data reveals that women hold 30.5% of elected offices in municipal governments across the nation, 30.9% in state legislatures and 26.5% in the U.S. Congress.

Although this data reveals significant improvements when contrasted with late twentieth century data, current state-by-state data reveals women are underrepresented in municipal government, and in state and federal elected offices.

There were forerunners that cut swaths through Napier grass like isms impeding race and gender equality. Shirley Chisholm, an African American woman, resisted the status quo and sowed seeds of progress along the “Chisholm Trail.” She opened pathways for others to travel.

Chisholm began her career in public service in 1960. She earned a master’s degree in early childhood education from Columbia University and became a recognized expert in early education and child welfare. New York City would benefit; she served as a consultant to the Division of Day Care.

Prolonged strivings in a milieu of injustice births desire for something better; desire cannot lay dormant, it fuels actions.

Shirley Chisholm joined the NAACP, the Urban League, the League of Women Voters, and the Democratic Party Club in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. In 1964, she became the second African American in the New York Legislature. In 1968, she was elected to represent New York in Congress. A court-ordered redistricting created a new district in her neighborhood. She cofounded the National Women’s Political Caucus, and in, in 1977, she became to first Black woman and second woman to serve on the House Rules Committee.

The ambiance of 1972 America was race and gender biased; Chisholm bumped up against it in the Democratic primaries. She was excluded from participating in televised primary debates. The skilled debater graduated cum laude from Brooklyn College in 1946; she won prizes on the debate team.

Legal action was taken. Chisholm was allowed one speech. She entered 12 primaries and won 152 delegates. She exemplified the “Golden Rule.” George Wallace was an avowed racist. His platform, when he ran for Governor of Alabama, was “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” He stood on the steps of the University of Alabama in 1963 to block Black students from attending.

Wallace met Rep. Shirley Chisholm on June 8, 1972. Both were running for president. The Democratic party favored the Wallace candidacy; a gunman altered his trajectory. Wallace was shot five times at a campaign stop in Laurel, Maryland. He was permanently paralyzed.

Chisholm paid Wallace a visit at Holy Cross Hospital. The fifteen-minute visit, his paralysis, and kind words from an African American woman had an impact on his stone racist heart. “I wouldn’t want what happened to you to happen to anyone,” she told him. Profuse weeping followed, it may have endured through the night; his perspective changed. I’m not certain that it was by the next morning.

Shirley Chisholm was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 30, 1924. Her parents were immigrants. Her father, Charles St. Hill, was from Guyana; her mother, Ruby Seale, was from Barbados. They had four daughters; Shirley was the oldest. She married Conrad Chisholm in 1949. They later divorced. She married Arthur Hardwick Jr., a New York State legislator, from Buffalo, in 1977.

Shirley Chisholm served seven terms in the House of Representatives. She died on January 1, 2005. She blazed the “Chisholm Trail.” She charted a path that many women have followed.

An all-woman city council took the oath of office in St. Paul, Minnesota on January 1, 2024. It’s not an anomaly. Woman are entering public service across the political spectrum.

A record number of women were elected to federal and state office in the 2022 midterm elections. The 118th congress is the most gender diverse in U.S. history. But there is more work to be done.

The U.S. was out ranked by 25 other countries in the global parity index. This index benchmarks national gender gaps on political, economic, and social criteria.

Gender equality owes a debt of gratitude to the “Fighting Shirley Chisholm – Unbought and Unbossed.”