Quotes from Shirley Chisholm

The next time a woman of whatever color, or a dark-skinned person of whatever sex aspires to be president, the way should be a little smoother because I helped pave it

Lincoln didn't just end slavery. King didn't just dream segregation away. Parks didn't just get tired one day. It is often the unrecognized actions of previous generations that push a society to eventually embrace mantras such as hope, equality, change, and other ideals, which transform the political landscape. Chisholm's actions remind us that there are hundreds of forgotten foot soldiers in history that helped to bring these watershed moments to fruition. For

Liberty and justice for all" were beautiful words, but the ugly fact was that liberty and justice were only for white males.

From the beginning I felt that there were only two ways to create change for black people in this country — either politically or by open armed revolution. Malcolm defined it succinctly — the ballot or the bullet. Since I believe that human life is uniquely valuable and important, for me the choice had to be the creative use of the ballot. I still believe I was right. I hope America never succeeds in changing my mind.

The one thing you've got going: your one vote.

I have already moved away from being a moderate, a liberal. My frustrations at trying to operate through channels and following the prescribed procedures, and failing to get any action, have radicalized me.

It is not female egotism to say that the future of mankind may very well be ours to determine. It is a fact. The warmth, gentleness, and compassion that are part of the female stereo- type are positive human values, values that are becoming more and more important as the values of our world begin to shatter and fall from our grasp.

Some fine men are in Congress, too few, trying to do a responsible job. But they are surrounded and almost neutralized by a greater number whose instinct is to make a deal before they make a decision.

The most tragic error into which older people can fall is one that is common among educators and politicians. It is to use youth as scapegoats for the sins of their elders.

The rest of the world sees through the sham, when we pour billions in "foreign aid," which is really military assistance, into underdeveloped countries where the citizens continue to starve – as do millions of our own.

When I looked at the white people who were doing this, consciously or not, it made me angry because so many of them were baser, less intelligent, less talented than the people they were lording it over. But the whites were in control. We could do nothing about it. We had no power. That was the way society was. I perceived that this was the way it was meant to be: things were organized to keep those who were on top up there. The country was racist all the way through.

Unless we start to fight and defeat the enemies in our own country, poverty and racism, and make our talk of equality and opportunity ring true, we are exposed in the eyes of the world as hypocrites when we talk about making people free.

Thousands like me kept saying, "Let us in a little. Give us a piece of the pie." What hap- pened? Watts, Newark, Hartford. And what was the re- action? We started to hear a new jargon about "the urban crisis" and "law and order" and "crime in the streets.

It is not female egotism to say that the future of mankind may very well be ours to determine. It is a fact.

One bill that I introduced should become law in every state, but unfortunately it did not succeed even in New York. It would have made it mandatory for policemen to success- fully complete courses in civil rights, civil liberties, minority problems, and race relations before they are appointed to a police department.

America has the laws and the material resources it takes to insure justice for all its people. What it lacks is the heart, the humanity, the Christian love that it would take. It is perhaps unrealistic to hope that I can help give this nation any of those things, but that is what I believe I have to try to do.

Following along the path of her role models, Shirley knew that if she waited for permission, she'd never receive her turn.

Botched abortions are the largest single cause of death of pregnant women in the United States, particularly among nonwhite women. In 1964, the president of the New York County Medical Society, Dr. Carl Goldmark, estimated that 80 percent of the deaths of gravid women in Manhattan were from this cause.

You can't argue with someone whose premises are completely different from yours, where there is not even an inch of common ground

The main thing I have in common with the kids is that we are tired of being lied to...If it is not too late for America to be saved, the young will save it – and the blacks, the Indians, the Spanish-surnamed,the young women, and the other victims of American society. They, if any, will become the conscience that the Country has lacked. They will try to force it to practice what it has preached.

Richard Nixon won in forty-nine states by, for one thing, appealing to the inherent racism of the American people. Voters saw him—a Harris poll two months after the election showed this plainly—as the candidate who would put a stop to school busing and the encroachment of blacks and other minorities on white jobs

different women view different segments of the women's movement agenda as priority items. (From Voices of Multicultural America)

She didn't need to be the Democratic Nominee in order to be a catalyst for change.

The famous peace symbol, it is often forgotten, originally came from the semaphore code for N–D, meaning nuclear disarmament.)