Quotes About Shirley Chisholm

I know that millions of Americans from all walks of life agree with me that leadership does not mean putting the ear to the ground to follow public opinion, but to have the vision of what is necessary and the courage to make it possible.

Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread, and deep-seated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.

My present attitude toward politics as it is practiced in the United States: it is a beautiful fraud that has been imposed on the people for years, whose practitioners exchange gilded promises for the most valuable thing their victims own, their votes. And who benefits most? The lawyers. (Chapter 4)

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.

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.

But it was true that there was a parallel between George Wallace's candidacy and mine, and there were places—such as northern Florida and North Carolina—where we seemed to be the only two candidates in the field. Although we represented opposite poles on many questions of policy, we both spoke for groups who felt dispossessed by the establishment and alienated by the course our society is taking.

Some of my earliest heroes were congresswomen like Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan.

Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time... its idea of meeting a problem is to hold hearings or, in extreme cases, to appoint a commission.