Shirley Chisholm

MIAMI,FL-- "Unbrought and unbossed" like her campaign slogan Shirley Chisholm will be remembered as a unique politician. She was the first black elected to congress and unspoken advocate for women and minorities during seven terms in the house has died at 80. She was our moses that opened the red sea for us. Robert E Williams president of NAACP in Flager county Florida, told the associated press late Sunday.

He did not have details of Chisholm death, which occurred saturday near Daytona Beach. Chisholm, who was raised in a pendominantly black New York City neighborhood and was elected in to the house in 1968, was a riveting speaker who often criticized congress as being to clubby and unresponsive.

"My greatest political asset, which professional political , fear in my mouth and out of which comes all kinds of things shouldn't always discuss for reason of political expediency" she told voters she went to congress the same year as Richard Nixon was elected and served two years into Ronald Reagan's tenure as presdient.She also was a founder and member of the congressional black caucus in 1969.

Anyone that came into contact they had a feeling of careness, and they felt that she was very much apart of each individual as she represented her district"' William Howard, long time campaign treasurer,said sunday. Newly she was assigned to the white house agriculture committee, which she felt was irrelevant to her urban constituency.In an unheard of move, she demanded reassignment and got switched to theVeterans affairs committee.

Not long after words she voted for Hale Boggs, who was white , over John Conyers, who was black, for majority leader. Boggs rewarded her with a place on the prized education and labor committee and she was was its third ranking member when she left.

She ran for democratic presidency in 1972.When rival candidate and ideological opposite was shot , she visited him in the hospital an act that applied for followers. He said "What are you people going to say I said: I know what they are going to say.But wouldn't want what happened to you to happen to anyone. He cried and cried' She recall.

And when she needed support to extend the minimum wage to domestic workers two years later, it was wallace who got her the votes from southern members of congress .Pragmatism and power was watchwords. Women have learned to felx their political muscles.you got to flex that muscle to get what you want"' She said during her presidential campaign.

when bella Abzug challenged Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the 1976 democratic senate primary Chisholm caused a stir by backing Moynihan. Where was Abzug when i ran for president?" She asked,when questioned by her choice. In her book unbrought and unbossed She recounted the campaign that brought her to congress and wrote of her concerns about the body:

Our representative democracy is not working because the voters does not responded to there needs .I believe the chief reason for this is that it is ruled by a small group of old men." The REV Jesse Jackson called Chisholm a women of courage."She was a activist and she never stopped fighting",Jackson said from Ohio Where he is set it lead a rally on monday in Columbus.

She refused to accpect the ordinary,and she had high expections and all people around herself and all people around here.Chishlom leadership traits were recognized by her parents early on she recalled. Born Shirley st.Hill in New York City on nov 30th, 1924 she was the eldest of four daughters of a Guyanese father and a barbadian mother.

Her father an unskilled laboring a in a burlap bag factory and, her mother a domestic scrimped to educate their children.At age 3, Shirley was sent to live on her grandmothers farm in barbados. She attended British grammar school and picked up the clipped Caribbean accent that marked her speech.

She moved back to New York when she was 11 and went on to graduate cum laude from Brooklyn collage and earned a master degree from Columbia University. She started her career as a director of a day care center and later severed as an educational consultant with the city bureau of child walfare. She became active in local Democratic politics and ran successful for state assembly in 1986.

She was a assembly women from 1964 to 1968 before besting James Farmer, the farmer national chairman of the congress of racial equality to gain the house seat. I'am the people politician she said at the time. If the day should ever come when the people can't save me, I'll know i'm finished. When she was 14 years later she companied that many of her constituents misunderstood her that she was a "pragmatic politician" whose influence was waning in conservative times.

She said she wanted more time for her family life.ater leaving congress Chisholm was named to the puritan chair at mountholyoke collage in south Haley, Massachusetts where she taught for four years. in later years she was a sought after speaker on the lecture circuit.

She was a tremendous leader in a voice in politics when she was in office as well as when she left office, manhattan borough president c. virginia fields told the A. P. Chisholm was married twice.Her 1949 marriage to Conrad Chisholm ened in divorce in February ,1977. Later that year she married Arthur Hardwick Jr. she had no children and Hardwick died in 1986.

Whether you agree with her in politics or not she had a moral compass and was a advocate for the under dog and scholar lynch director of Chisholm 72 Unbrought and unbossed a documentary on her 1972 presidential campaign. once discussing what her legacy might be chisholm commented i liked them to say shirley Chisholm had guts. that's how i would like to be remembered.