In the year that Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm ’46 would have turned 100 years old, the echoes and reverberations are everywhere. Sure, there’s the obvious. Chisholm was the first Black woman to seek a major party’s nomination for president. Vice President Kamala Harris—who said she walked in “a path that she created,” referring to Chisholm—put several more cracks in that glass ceiling this year. Harris’s campaign not only pointedly riffed on some of the visual language and branding from Chisholm’s 1972 campaign—see the tall, all caps, sans-serif type in the Harris-Walz logo—but the vice president took many opportunities to pay homage, including on a podcast where she named Chisholm as one the first guests she’d have over for dinner if she got to choose from people dead or alive. But Chisholm, one of our most celebrated alums, famously said she wanted to be remembered not so much for her presidential run, but as a catalyst for change. Her body of work includes advocacy and advancement on a host of fronts, including education reform, labor rights, reproductive rights, gender equality, and access to healthcare. She was a powerful coalition builder, an educator, a social justice warrior, a mentor, and a barrier breaker. “She was an intellectual, a poet, a political activist, a teacher, a polished orator, and so much more,” says Zinga Fraser, director of Brooklyn College’s The Shirley Chisholm Project of Brooklyn Women’s Activism, which is a repository of Chisholm’s records, photos, and other memorabilia in addition to serving as an archive of women’s grassroots social activism in Brooklyn. Zinga Fraser pictured with poet Sonia Sanchez at a Shirley Chisholm Day event on campus. Fraser is also co-curator of the exhibit in Chisholm’s honor at the Museum of the City of New York and author of Shirley Chisholm in Her Own Words: Speeches and Writings (University of California Press, 2024), released last month. A Legacy of Courage Chisholm grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant and had been accepted at Oberlin and Vassar but chose Brooklyn College because, at the time, it was tuition-free. The daughter of West Indian immigrants not only excelled academically—she graduated cum laude with a sociology degree—but organized political clubs for Black students and won awards for her debating prowess. She went on to Columbia University, where she picked up a master’s degree in childhood education. She worked for a decade as an early childhood educator and as a child welfare consultant, becoming ever more politically active until she decided to run for the New York State Assembly in 1964. The rest is legend. She went on to enjoy a long and successful political career. In the State Assembly, she crafted legislation that led to the creation of the SEEK program at CUNY, which to this day provides academic and financial assistance to students entering college for the first time. “Shirley Chisholm left a legacy of willingly stepping into a space with courage,” says Randall Clarke, the director of Brooklyn College’s SEEK program. “We are an example of that philosophy. Mrs. Chisholm empowered thousands of youths to be equipped with the power they will need to challenge their own precedents. The guts she had to go beyond the norms of her day has empowered the SEEK program to grow and support thousands of young people in earning a bachelor’s degree.” Chisholm also spent seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives—the first Black woman elected to Congress—working on important legislation to improve the lives of inner-city residents through increased spending on education and health care, expanding the food stamp program, and helping to create the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. Tributes to a Legend Illustration of Shirley Chisholm by Joe Loguirato A “complicated figure who fought with the boys and navigated machine politics,” as Fraser puts it, Chisholm didn’t always get her due. But today, Fraser says “her name gets mentioned in nearly every political gathering you can go to in Brooklyn.” She was also saluted at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. There’s a New York State park, a street, and a state office building named in her honor, as well as a statue planned for an entrance to Prospect Park, and a painting of her in the U.S. Congress. But more important than the physical tributes are her living acolytes, many of whom are Brooklyn College alums. When she successfully lobbied for a Little Caribbean designation for parts of Brooklyn, Shelley Worrell ’00 says Chisholm was on her mind. “Aunty Shirley taught me that it’s important to be counted properly so that we’re not erased,” says Worrell, founder of I AM CARIBBEING, who recalled that to make a point about the importance of being counted, Chisholm once put on an enumerator’s badge and went out and conducted census surveys herself. Tarika Barrett ’96, the CEO of Girls Who Code and a former political science major, began her career as an educator and community organizer, much like Chisholm. Today, she is working to close the gender gap in technology. “Shirley Chisholm is a reminder to young girls everywhere that they can be fearless in pursuing their dreams and unapologetic in demanding equality and justice,” says Barrett. “When I think of her, I’m inspired to challenge a world that wants to ignore the contributions of Black women, and work to inspire future generations to use their voices and actions to create meaningful change, no matter the odds.” Iris Weinshall, the chief operating officer of the New York Public Library, says she can’t wait to see the Chisholm monument and welcome center that is set to open at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park next year. “She’s a great role model for children of different races and religions to learn about,” says Weinshall. Last year, at the groundbreaking of the Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center in East Flatbush—slated to open next year—New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams ’01 ’05 M.A. alluded to the importance of Chisholm’s having left a legacy for people like him to carry on. “When we’re leaders, we know that stuff may not happen when we’re here,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that people who come after us can finish it.”
