Embarrassingly, my first introduction to Shirley Chisholm was the 2014 stamp that she appeared on for Black History Month. (Now that I know more about her, I can definitely say that the stamp does not do her justice — it makes her look like James Brown.)
I looked Chisholm up on Wikipedia to understand her impact and learned the basics: first black Congresswoman (1969-1983). Ran for president in 1972, a campaign oft-mentioned when Obama ran thirty years later.
The campaign she ran was seen as mostly symbolic, but she spoke out on important issues in ways that still ring true today. Her 1970 autobiography, Unbought and Unbossed, cited these astonishing statistics of women who died in pregnancy:
Illegal abortion is the cause of 25 percent of the white women’s deaths, 49 percent of the black women’s, and 65 percent of the Puerto Ricans’. 90 percent of the “therapeutic” abortions in New York City — the safe and legal ones during the regime of criminalization — are performed on white women.
She goes on to say:
Such statistics convinced me that my instinctive feeling was right. A black woman legislator, far from avoiding the abortion question, was compelled to face it and deal with it.
For the rest of her career, Chisholm worked to help ensure safe reproductive healthcare for all women. Though her leadership encompassed many realms, this is one area where her voice rang particularly clear:
Thank you, Shirley Chisholm, for not fearing what others would think of you and doing what you thought was right. For fighting for people who couldn’t fight for themselves. And for being a leader for so many who came after you. Your strength is a great example for us all, even now, a decade after your death.