Shirley Chisholm Announcing Candidacy for President, 1972

Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm announcing her candidacy for the presidential nomination, Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (November 30, 1924 - January 1, 2005) was an American politician, educator, and author. She was a Congresswoman, representing New York's 12th District from 1969-83. In 1968, she became the first African-American woman elected to Congress. In 1972, she became the first major-party black candidate for President and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. She created controversy when she visited rival and ideological opposite George Wallace in the hospital soon after his shooting in May 1972. Several years later, when Chisholm worked on a bill to give domestic workers the right to a minimum wage, Wallace helped gain votes of enough Southern congressmen to push the legislation through the House. Throughout her tenure in Congress, Chisholm worked to improve opportunities for inner-city residents. She was a vocal opponent of the draft and supported spending increases for education, health care and other social services, and reductions in military spending. After retiring from the Congress in 1982 she resumed her career in education. She told students to avoid polarization and intolerance: If you don't accept others who are different, it means nothing that you've learned calculus. She died in 2005, at the age of 80, after suffering several strokes. Photographed by Thomas J. O'Halloran, January 25, 1972

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Chisholm Congresswoman Educator Legislator Negro Negroes Nomination

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