Unite

An amazing and inspiring woman, Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (1924-2005) was an American politician, educator and author. In 1968 she was the first African-American Woman every elected to congress and served her constitutes from the New York 12th district for seven terms. In 1972 she became the first African-American Female candidate of a major party (Democrat) to run for the Presidency. She won 152 delegates.

Let us unite people not divide. Here are her words, which are very interesting in light of this current primary race:

• 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 deep seated, 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 self-hoods, but meet on a basis of respect and equality and live together, socially, economically, and politically.

• In the end anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing - anti-humanism.

Source: PBS.org