Shirley Chisholm
At present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.Collection: Women
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.Collection: Society
I want history to remember me... 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 who dared to be herself. I want to be remembered as a catalyst for change in America.Collection: History
Legal discrimination between the sexes is, in almost every instance, founded on outmoded views of society and the pre-scientific beliefs about psychology and physiology. It is time to sweep away these relics of the past and set further generations free of them.Collection: Legal
It is obvious that discrimination exists. Women do not have the opportunities that men do. And women that do not conform to the system, who try to break with the accepted patterns, are stigmatized as odd and unfeminine.Collection: Women
My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn't always discuss for reasons of political expediency.Collection: Fear
Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.Collection: Society
The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: It's a girl.Collection: Equality
Women have learned to flex their political muscles. You got to flex that muscle to get what you want.Collection: Women
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.Collection: Leadership
Our representative democracy is not working because the Congress that is supposed to represent the voters does not respond to their needs. I believe the chief reason for this is that it is ruled by a small group of old men.Collection: Men
I have certainly met much more discrimination in terms of being a woman than being black, in the field of politics.Collection: Politics
You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.
We must reject not only the stereotypes that others have of us but also those that we have of ourselves.
If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.
Service is the rent that you pay for room on this earth.
When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.
Of course laws will not eliminate prejudice from the hearts of human beings. But that is no reason to allow prejudice to continue to be enshrined in our laws - to perpetuate injustice through inaction.
I'm looking to no man walking this earth for approval of what I'm doing.
I don't measure America by its achievement but by its potential.
I'd like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts. That's how I'd like to be remembered.
I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo. The next time a woman runs, or a black, a Jew, or anyone from a group that the country is 'not ready' to elect to its highest office, I believe that he or she will be taken seriously from the start.
Mother always said that even when I was 3, I used to get the 6- and 7-year-old kids on the block and punch them and say, 'Listen to me.'
I ran because somebody had to do it first. In this country, everybody is supposed to be able to run for president, but that has never really been true.
I am not the candidate of Black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the woman's movement of this country, although I am a woman and I am equally proud of that.
Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.
America is composed of all kinds of people - part of the difficulty in our nation today is due to the fact that we are not utilising the abilities and the talents of other brown and black peoples and females that have something to bring to the creativity and the rejuvenation and the revitalisation of this country.
There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price.
The fact is that a woman who aspires to be chairman of the board - or a member of the House - does so for exactly the same reasons as any man. Basically, these are that she thinks she can do the job, and she wants to try.
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.
I stand before you today to repudiate the ridiculous notion that the American people will not vote for qualified candidates simply because he is not white or because she is not a male.
I'm finding all over America that people are sick and tired of the tweedle-dee dees and the tweedle-dee dums who constantly flip-flap from one side to another. People are interested in having candidates that are truthful.
The liberals in the House strongly resemble liberals I have known through the last two decades in the civil rights conflict. When it comes time to show on which side they will be counted, they excuse themselves.
George Wallace for some strange, unknown reason, he liked me. George Wallace came down to Florida, and he went all over Florida, and he said to the people, 'If you all can't vote for me, don't vote for those oval-headed lizards. Vote for Shirley Chisholm!' And that crashed my votes, because they thought that I was in league with him to get votes.
I am the people's politician. If the day should ever come when the people can't save me, I'll know I'm finished.
Not only am I literally and figuratively the dark horse, I'm actually the poor horse. The only thing that I have going for me is my soul and my commitment to the American people.
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.
When I die, I want to be remembered as a woman who lived in the twentieth century and who dared to be a catalyst of change. I don't want to be remembered as the first black woman who went to Congress. And I don't even want to be remembered as the first woman who happened to be black to make a bid for the Presidency I want to be remembered as a woman who fought for change in the twentieth century. That's what I want.Collection: Black
Don't list to those who say YOU CAN'T. Listen to the voice inside yourself that says, I CAN.Collection: Leadership
In the end anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.Collection: Black
Defeat should not be the source of discouragement, but a stimulus to keep plotting.Collection: Defeat
I have never cared too much what people say. What I am interested in is what they do.Collection: People
The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers - a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.Collection: Mother
I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.Collection: Running
Health is a human right, not a privilege to be purchased.Collection: Care
Laws will not eliminate prejudice from the hearts of human beings. But that is no reason to allow prejudice to continue to be enshrined in our laws - to perpetuate injustice through inaction.Collection: Heart
Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread and deepseated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.Collection: Country
I am and always will be a catalyst for change.Collection: Catalyst For Change
I've always met more discrimination being a woman than being Black...men are men.Collection: Men
Women must become revolutionary. This cannot be evolution but revolution.Collection: Revolution