Award-winning Poet Sonia Sanchez Examines the Power of Black Women's Politics at Brooklyn College's Shirley Chisholm Day Celebration

On November 27, Brooklyn College, and the nation, celebrated Shirley Chisholm Day 2018, which came in the same month as the 50th anniversary of Chisholm's historic election to the U.S. Congress. The Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women's Activism and its director Zinga A. Fraser Ph.D. held a day-long symposium on campus featuring a keynote dialogue with activist, American Book Award- and Academy of American Poets' Wallace Stevens Lifetime Achievement Award-winning poet Sonia Sanchez Ph.D.

Sanchez remembered Chisholm as "someone who dressed for the establishment but spoke for the people. She taught us to speak out. And she never neglected to mention the shoulders she stood upon, clearing a path for those who stand upon her shoulders."

The standing-room-only event also featured local and state politicians, as well as two of the preeminent black women scholars in the field of political science: Christina Greer of Fordham University and Niambi Carter of Howard University.

"One of the things that really stood out to me about Chisholm was that she was early to the conversation about the racism inherent in U.S. immigration policy," said Carter. "That critique is really important and prescient now when we're talking about refugees at the border who are being tear-gassed, arrested, and turned away for seeking relief from political and other kinds of persecution."

"We have Andrea Stewart Cousins as the first African-American woman New York Senate Democratic Leader, and Tish James, the first African-American woman elected statewide as Attorney General," added Greer. "That's only possible because of the work Chisholm did in Albany and the foundation she laid. Those women have a real, direct lineage tracing right back to her."

Fraser—who recently spoke with the Associated Press about Chisholm's importance and is currently working on the book, Sister Insider/ Sister Outsider: Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan Black Women's Politics in the Post-Civil Rights Era, which will be the first comparative study of black congressional women—moderated the day's events and spoke of Chisholm's lasting influence on politics.

"Chisholm's political legacy is as relevant today as it was 50 years ago because it not only allowed a nation and the world to imagine a black woman as a participant in American Democracy, but also identify her as a leader that transformed Congress and democratic institutions from the inside," Fraser said. "Chisholm's is a story of resilience and her political career serves as a strategy for a new generation of leaders who are no longer asking for a seat at the table, but bringing their own folding chair, as Chisholm once instructed. We can see this in the new class of diverse women entering Congress in January. Because Chisholm brought a chair, they can now have a seat."

Shirley Chisholm graduated cum laude from Brooklyn College in 1946 with a bachelor of arts in sociology and anthropology. She was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1968. In 1972, she became first major-party black candidate for president of the United States and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Chisholm's iconic "Unbought and Unbossed" and "Catalyst for Change" and campaigns united women, the working class, and racial minorities in a diverse coalition of voters. Far more than just a symbolic figure, Chisholm was a vociferous champion for policies that improved the lives of marginalized people. In the NY legislature, she pioneered the Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge (SEEK) program. The program is funded by New York State to provide financial support and individualized counseling low-income students who enroll in the CUNY system. To this day, students at all CUNY member colleges have greater access to higher education as a result of her legislative work.

She also fought for unemployment benefits for domestic workers—a measure which she considered among her proudest achievements. Later, she would also champion this issue in the U.S. House of Representatives, sponsoring a bill to ensure minimum wage to domestic workers. As a national figure, she opposed the massive war spending in Vietnam in the face of significant poverty in the United States. She advocated for the Equal Rights Amendment, enlisting more women into positions of political power, publicly funded daycare, parental leave, civil rights and political autonomy for black people, voting rights for all, and women's reproductive freedom. Further, she was deeply concerned with issues of hunger, lending her influence to the expansion of food stamps and acting as a key architect of the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program.

Chisholm passed away in 2005 at the age of 80. That same year, Shirley Chisholm Day, which generally falls on or near her November 30 birthday, was created to remember and celebrate her life and achievements. In 2015, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama. Earlier this year, it was announced that a massive 407-acre park along Jamaica Bay would be dedicated to Chisholm, with the park's amphitheater to be named after her. The first phase of the space is set to open in the summer of 2019. In 2020, a monument will be erected in Brooklyn's Prospect Park to commemorate Chisholm's achievements. Keeping Chisholm's enduring legacy safe, the Shirley Chisholm Project maintains the world's largest collection of Chisholm-related artifacts, archived at the Brooklyn College Library.

Information on how to support the Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women's Activism is available on the project's website.