Unbought and Unbossed

by Shirley Chisholm

By changing the way America thought about women, minorities, and poor children, she changed the course of our nation’s history.

“I want history to remember me not just as the first black woman to be elected to Congress, not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and dared to be herself. I want to be remembered as a catalyst for change in America.”

“Unbought and Unbossed” in 1970, a time when there were limited seats available for women and minorities in the electoral arena.

She did not wait for permission and she did not seek the acceptance of those who came before her. She was her own boss, as unpredictable as she was unpretentious.

Mrs. Chisholm understood how to fight both within and outside the system. And she never wanted to be looked upon as a “sell out” at a time when Blacks and other minorities used the political system to help empower their communities to seek change.

"Women in this country must become revolutionaries,” she said. “We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and stereotypes."

“No one has the right to call himself a leader,” she declared, “unless he dares to lead.”

That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black, and a woman proves, I would think, that our society is not yet either just or free.

Women are a majority of the population, but they are treated like a minority group.

Of my two "handicaps," being female put many more ob- stacles in my path than being black.

Garvey declared in the 1920s that "black is beautiful" and called on blacks to preserve their racial purity by becoming separate. His goal was to unite American blacks and return them to Africa, where they would become the equals of any man, in independent isola- tion.

When any organization had a Marcus Garvey tribute, he would dress up and go. Sometimes he took me, and there I heard my first black nationalist oratory — talk of race pride and the need for unity, despite any differences, because, the speakers stressed, "We have a common enemy."

My youth may have been sheltered from boys and some other realities, but I was black, and nobody needed to draw me a diagram. No matter how well I prepared myself, society wasn't going to give me a chance to do much of anything else.

Society speakers warned of the future: "The day is going to come when blacks and whites will be at each other's throats in their own communities."

the 1943 Detroit riots had happened to serve as a portent.

"We've got to help the Negro because the Negro is limited," or, "Of course, the Negro people have always been the laborers and will continue to be. So we've got to make it more comfortable for them."

observed silently the treatment blacks were given in social and political situations. It grew on me that we, black men especially, were expected to be subservient even in groups where ostensibly everyone was equal. Blacks played by those rules; if a white man walked in, they came subtly to attention. But I could see their fear, helplessness, and discomfort.

things were organized to keep those who were on top up there. The country was racist all the way through.

Ipothia, which stood for "in pursuit of the highest in all."

I was beginning to feel how useless it was for blacks to sit and talk with "the leading people" in the community, on biracial committees. It had begun to be clear that as long as we kept talking, nothing much was going to happen, and that this was what the "leading people" really wanted.

Wesley McD. Holder.

He was out to elect black candidates to represent black communities. Mac was and still is, in his seventies, the shrewdest, toughest, and hardest-working black political ani- mal in Brooklyn, probably in New York City,

the organization never had and never would pick black candi- dates even if the area became 99 percent black, so black citi- zens would have to organize and fight for candidates of their own.

Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power. Their first rule is "Don't rock the boat." If someone makes trouble and you can get him, do it. If you can't get him, bring him in. Give him some of the action, let him have a taste of power. Power is all anyone wants, and if he has a promise of it as a reward for being good, he'll be

good. Anyone who does not play by those rules is incompre- hensible to most politicians.

Our platform stressed integration, better schools, higher wages, more jobs, better health care, housing, and transportation, more lighting, sanitation, and youth services

for the neighborhood, and full representation for black and Puerto Rican citizens.

The other people who got elected were men, of course, because that was the way it was in politics. This had to change someday, and I was resolved that it was going to start changing right then.

I understood too well their reasons for lashing out at black women; in a society that denied them real manhood, I was threatening their shaky self-esteem still more.

Frederick Douglass said it best and shortest: "Power concedes nothing."

The rules of the political game are designed to make it possible for men in power to control the actions of their supporters and stay there. If they can't control some- one, they are disturbed. It is a threat to their security. They put the troublemaker's name in a figurative little black book, with a note: this is a person we have to hold back. They label him a rebel, a nonconformist, a maverick.

Most black politicians are no different from white ones. They're not their own bosses either. If they don't function within the framework, they're punished and, if possible, eliminated. The punishment is drastic. They assign you to committees that are not popular, or where no work is done.

The amount of money available for state aid is not unlimited, and it should be reserved for the schools that educate the children of any and all of the people. If a minority group wants to maintain its own schools for its own purposes, there should be no interference with them, provided the schools meet academic standards. But they have no right to public money, which should go to the public schools.

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.

It is what the system does. There are so many ways for those in power to control someone who strays. They jealously guard their power and use it to make sure that they call the shots; they are the ones who benefit from the system.

Another lesson I learned was that if you decide to operate on the basis of your conscience, rather than your political ad- vantage, you must be ready for the consequences and not complain when you suffer them.

gerrymandered

invent it to describe the con- gressional map designed to disenfranchise minorities, espe- cially blacks, in New York City before the middle nineteen sixties.

pious

It is true that women are second-class citi- zens, just as black people are. Tremendous amounts of talent are being lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt. This is stupid and wrong, and I want the time to come when we can be as blind to sex as we are to color.

One basis for it may be that in the islands, slavery was a less destructive experience than it was in the States. Families were not broken up as they were in the South. The abolition of slavery came earlier there, and with much less trouble. In the islands, there have never been the same kind of race barriers. There are class barriers, but they are not the same; race lines cut across them. As a result, I think blacks from the islands tend to have less fear of white people, and therefore less hatred of them. They can meet whites as equals; this is harder for American blacks, who tend to overreact by jumping from feeling that whites are supe- rior to looking down on them as inferior.

if you have strong feelings about something, you do it." What he thought I meant, I will never

senility

We don't need any more legislation for a while. What we need is a Congress — and an administration — that will permit the ones we have to work. At present we have neither; we have, in fact, just the opposite.

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

"We Americans," I said in my maiden speech late in March, "have come to feel that it is our mission to make the world free. We believe that we are the good guys, everywhere, in Vietnam, in Latin America, wherever we go. We believe we are good guys at home, too.

When the Kerner Commission told white America what black America has always known, that prejudice and hatred built the nation's slums, main- tains them and profits by them, white America could not believe it.

It is inexcusable, because the House has to handle the same appropriations bills every year. Everyone knows from the start of a session what has to be done. But it is not done for months, and then it is done badly. After- ward, the leaders of both parties get on the floor and blame each other.

the age of congressmen should be limited to sixty-five. Six or eight terms in the House and three or four in the Senate should be the limit re- gardless of age. The committee system should be shaken up, with members being moved around more. When they stay on one committee forever, they tend to be corrupted by their contact with special interest representatives, who court them for their influence.

Conflicts of interest should be grounds for impeachment.