"If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair" - Shirley Chisholm

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was the first African American woman to serve in the United States Congress.

She was also the first African American woman to run for United States President, winning an impressive 152 of the delegates’ votes (10%).

She began her career in education, but was also active in the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, the Urban League, and the Democratic Party Club in her home neighborhood of Bedford Stuyvesent, Brooklyn.

Shirley Chisholm was always very aware of gender and racial inequities and how they shaped the lives of her students, her fellow educators, her fellow citizens.

In 1964, Chisholm became the 2nd Representative in the NY State Legislature. In 1968, she won her seat in Congress.

In Congress, she used her acumen and position to introduce more than 50 pieces of legislation addressing the needs of women, children, immigrants, low income people and people of color.

When she ran for president in the 1972 election, she faced all kinds of discrimination, and erasure from the media.

Nevertheless, she won 152 delegates and set the bar high for subsequent candidates.

She said, “I want to be remembered as a woman who was a catalyst of change."