Dass Barack Obama im Jahr 2008 der erste amerikanische Präsident Schwarzer Hautfarbe wurde, hat weltweit viele Menschen überrascht, verblüfft, hoch-erfreut und tief-verärgert - je nach politischem Standpunkt und Identität. Doch haben Sie gewußt, dass sich schon fast ein halbes Jahrhundert zuvor jemand mit Schwarzer Hautfarbe anschickte, das mächtigste Amt der USA und der Welt zu übernehmen? Was noch mehr verbüfft ist, dass der Kanditat der Demokratischen Partei im Jahr 1972 eine Schwarze FRAU war: Shirley Chisholm.
Ein interessanter Artikel in der "afrosphere" - der Schwarzen Bloggerszene also - hat mich aufmerksam gemacht auf diese in jeder Beziehung höchst außergewöhnliche Frau:
Shirley Chisholm, Unbought and Unbossed «
May 19, 2010 by Anna Renee
"During Hillary Clinton‘s campaign for president of the United States, many asked the question, Is America ready for a woman president? Well, the question was already asked, and by a bold, confident, beautiful black woman! Back in the day, before the Obama era, Sister Shirley Chisholm dared to run for the highest office of the land, the president of this United States of America.Well just who is Shirley Chisholm? She is the daughter of Charles Christopher St. Hill and Ruby Seale, both immigrants from Barbados. She was born in Brooklyn New York on November 30, 1924, a mere year and a half after her father arrived in April 1923. Her mother had already arrived in 1921. When Shirley was three years old she was sent to Barbados to live with her maternal grandmother, and she didn’t return to the United States until seven years later. Shirley has said that she’s grateful for the strict British education that she received back in Barbados..."
"Shirley Chisholm broke ground before Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton"
By CARY CLACK/SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
"History is always in a hurry to see and do things that have never before been seen and done. But even in its insatiable quest for uncharted territory, history understands the importance of looking back and preserving the memory and accomplishments of those who gave it momentum.
This fall, for the first time in the American saga, either an African-American or a woman will be on the ballot as one of the two major-party nominees for president. Even the loser of the race for the Democratic nomination between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will have broken new ground and earned a page or two in history books.
But before Hillary and Barack in 2008, there was Shirley in 1972.
Thirty-six years ago, U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm became the first woman and the first black person to seek a major party's presidential nomination.
When she made her announcement on Jan. 25, 1972, she was already a historic figure by virtue of her 1968 election to the House, representing Brooklyn's 12th Congressional District. It was an election that made her the first black woman elected to Congress.
Her campaign slogan, and the title of her first book, was "Unbought and Unbossed," and her sense of who she was became evident when, after being sworn in, she told The Washington Post, "I am an historical person at this point, and I'm very much aware of it."....
...
Chisholm was an unabashed liberal who advocated for the rights of women and people of color and was a fierce opponent of the Vietnam War. But the essence of her character was revealed when one of her opponents for the Democratic nomination, race-baiting Alabama Gov. George Wallace, was the victim of an assassination attempt in Maryland, an attack that would leave him paralyzed from the waist down.
Chisholm visited him in the hospital and was criticized in the black community. She says that when Wallace saw her, he asked, "What are your people going to say?" Her answer to him was, "I know what they're going to say. But I wouldn't want what happened to you to happen to anyone." Wallace cried.
In her book "The Good Fight," Chisholm explained why she ran for president. "I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo," she wrote. "The next time a woman runs, or a black, a Jew or anyone from a group that the country is 'not ready' to elect to its highest office, I believe that he or she will be taken seriously from the start."
Chisholm died on New Year's Day 2005 at the age of 80. That year, filmmaker Shola Lynch released a remarkable documentary on her campaign called "Chisholm 72: Unbought and Unbossed." In it, Chisholm says she didn't want to be remembered only for being the first black congresswoman or the first woman and black to seek a major party's presidential nomination.
She said, "I want to be remembered as a woman who fought for change in the 20th century. That's what I want."
Shirley, you got it."
Chisholm speech on the Equal Rights Amendment
Shirley Chisholm's 1972 Presidential Campaign
Chisholm '72 - Unbought & Unbossed documentary by Shola Lynch
Writings:
Chislom, Shirley (1970). Unbought and Unbossed. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 9780395109328.
Chisholm, Shirley (2010). Scott Simpson. ed. Unbought and Unbossed: Expanded 40th Anniversary Edition. Take Root Media. ISBN 9780980059021. , Also available via the editor Scott Simpson's site.
Chisholm, Shirley (1973). The Good Fight. Harper Collins. ISBN 9780060107642.
Während Shirley Chisholm hierzulande weitgehend unbekannt geblieben ist, gehört sie in den Vereinigten Staaten zu den Pionierinnen zahlreicher Institutionen und Bewegungen. Der US-Congress ehrt z.B. sie als erste Schwarze Congresswoman, die Schwarze Bürgerrechtsbewegung zählt sie neben Rosa Parks und Martin Luther King jr. zu ihren unerschütterlichen Grundfesten, die Frauenbewegung, die Demokratische Partei und viele andere würdigen ihr Lebenswerk über Jahrzehnte hinweg immer wieder aufs Neue.
Shirley Chisholm – Wikipedia
Shirley Chisholm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CHISHOLM, Shirley Anita - Biographical Information
Shirley Chisholm Biography - life, childhood, children, parents, history, school, old, information, born, college, house, time
Encyclopedia of World Biography
Shirley Chisholm Quotes
About.com:Woman's History
Aussagen von Shirley Chisholm:
• I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish. That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free.
• I want history to remember me not just as the first black woman to be elected to Congress, not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and dared to be herself.
• Of my two "handicaps" being female put more obstacles in my path than being black.
• I've always met more discrimination being a woman than being black.
• My God, what do we want? What does any human being want? Take away an accident of pigmentation of a thin layer of our outer skin and there is no difference between me and anyone else. All we want is for that trivial difference to make no difference.
• Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread and deepseated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.
• We Americans have a chance to become someday a nation in which all racial stocks and classes can exist in their own selfhoods, but meet on a basis of respect and equality and live together, socially, economically, and politically.
• In the end antiblack, antifemale, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing - antihumanism.
• 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.
• The United States was said not to be ready to elect a Catholic to the Presidency when Al Smith ran in the 1920's. But Smith's nomination may have helped pave the way for the successful campaign John F. Kennedy waged in 1960. Who can tell? What I hope most is that now there will be others who will feel themselves as capable of running for high political office as any wealthy, good-looking white male.
• At present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.
• I am, was, and always will be a catalyst for change.
• There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price.
• One distressing thing is the way men react to women who assert their equality: their ultimate weapon is to call them unfeminine. They think she is anti-male; they even whisper that she's probably a lesbian.
• ... rhetoric never won a revolution yet.
• Prejudice against blacks is becoming unacceptable although it will take years to eliminate it. But it is doomed because, slowly, white America is beginning to admit that it exists. Prejudice against women is still acceptable. There is very little understanding yet of the immorality involved in double pay scales and the classification of most of the better jobs as "for men only." (1969)
• Tremendous amounts of talent are being lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.
• Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth. (attributed -- also attributed to Marian Wright Edelman)...."
Black Americans in Congress - Shirley A. Chisholm, Representative from New York
"...Chisholm’s welcome in the House was not warm, due to her immediate outspokenness. “I have no intention of just sitting quietly and observing,” she said. “I intend to focus attention on the nation’s problems.” She did just that, lashing out against the Vietnam War in her first floor speech on March 26, 1969. Chisholm vowed to vote against any defense appropriation bill “until the time comes when our values and priorities have been turned right-side up again.”7 She was assigned to the Committee on Agriculture, a decision she appealed directly to House Speaker John McCormack of Massachusetts (bypassing Ways and Means Committee Chairman Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, who oversaw Democratic committee appointments). McCormack told her to be a “good soldier,” at which point Chisholm brought her complaint to the House Floor. She was reassigned to the Veterans’ Affairs Committee which, though not one of her top choices, was more relevant to her district’s makeup. “There are a lot more veterans in my district than trees,” she quipped.8 From 1971 to 1977 she served on the Committee on Education and Labor, having won a place on that panel with the help of Hale Boggs of Louisiana, whom she had endorsed as Majority Leader.9 She also served on the Committee on Organization Study and Review (known as the Hansen Committee), whose recommended reforms for the selection of committee chairmen were adopted by the Democratic Caucus in 1971..."Chisholm - Shirley Chisholm - First Black Woman to Run for President
Black Americans in Congress - Keeping the Faith
Equal Rights for Women - Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement
National Women's Hall of Fame - Women of the Hall
Shirley Chisholm: Visionary Videos: NVLP: African American History
mit Videoclips und Radiointerview
chisholm_booklet.pdf (application/pdf-Objekt)
Gale - Free Resources - Black History - Biographies - Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm
Meet Shirley Chisholm
1972 Shirley Chisholm campaign photo
Shirley Chisholm’s Legacy - The Brooklyn Rail
Shirley Chisholm biography
Als Shirley Chisholm Anfang 2005 im Alter von 80 Jahren stirbt, erinnern sich zwar viele Menschen in Amerika dankbar an die Pionierin der Politik und der Bürgerrechtsbewegung, doch noch sind die Zeiten für Präsident George Bush jr. nicht "schwierig genug", um ihr auch offiziell Respekt zu zollen - so wie nur wenige Monate später Rosa Parks, die im US-Respräsentantenhaus aufgebahrt und für die im ganzen Land Trauerbeflaggung vom Präsidenten angeordnet wurde.
Rosa Parks – Wikipedia
Pioneering Politician, Candidate Dies (washingtonpost.com)
Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Chisholm (1924 - 2005) - Find A Grave Memorial
Shirley Chisholm dies at 80 - Politics - msnbc.com
Fotos: Thank you! Dankeschön!
1. Shirley Chisholm in a 1969 re-enactment of her swearing-in./AP/Shirley Chisholm dies at 80 - Politics - msnbc.com
2. Shirley Chisholm, future member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-NY), announcing her candidacy./Thomas J. O'Halloran, U.S. News & World Reports/Library of Congress/Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons
3. Campaign 1972/Courtesy of Arlie Scott/The Brookly Rail Shirley Chisholm’s Legacy - The Brooklyn Rail
4. Encyclopedia of World Biography/Shirley Chisholm Biography - life, childhood, children, parents, history, school, old, information, born, college, house, time
5. In front of the Congressbuilding: Image courtesy of Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives/Black Americans in Congress Black Americans in Congress - Shirley A. Chisholm, Representative from New York
6. und 7. Shirley Chisholm young and older: National Visionary Leadership Project Shirley Chisholm: Visionary Videos: NVLP: African American History
8. Grabstein: Alan Brownsten/ Shirley Chisholm (1924 - 2005) - Find A Grave Memorial
9. Congressman Edlophus Towns (left) and his wife, Gwen Towns (right) pose with former Congresswoman and Brooklyn native, en:Shirley Chisholm (center)/Office of United States Representative Edolphus Towns/Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons
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