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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, a Black History Month segment for this presidential election year, remembering Shirley Chisholm's groundbreaking run for the Democratic nomination in 1972. Chisholm had a motto, not just for her historic campaign, but throughout her entire political life and career, many of you know it, "Unbought and Unbossed". In 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to Congress. She was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, as well as the National Women's Political Caucus.

When she tossed her hat in the ring for the Democratic Party nomination in the 1972 presidential race, she had little support from the political establishment. Here was a candidate outspoken on behalf of civil rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, and the dignity of the poor during a period marked by economic recession. Perhaps ahead of her time, she supported a minimum family income. In an era of the FBI so-called COINTELPRO investigations of civil rights leaders, she publicly opposed wiretapping and domestic spying. Here is Shirley Chisholm announcing her candidacy for the nomination in 1972.

Shirley Chisholm: I am not the candidate of Black America, although I am Black and proud.

[applause]

Shirley Chisholm: I am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I'm equally proud of that.

[applause]

Shirley Chisholm: I am not the candidate of any political bosses, or fat cats, or special interests.

[applause]

Shirley Chisholm: I stand here now without endorsements from many big-name politicians, or celebrities, or any other kind of prop. I do not intend to offer to you the tired and glib cliches which for too long have been accepted part of our political life. I am the candidate of the people of America.

[applause]

Brian Lehrer: Shirley Chisholm declaring her candidacy on January 25th, 1972, in Brooklyn. Let's talk about this important and inspiring piece of history with Zinga Fraser, assistant professor of Africana Studies and Women's and Gender Studies and director of the Shirley Chisholm Project at Brooklyn College. She's also co-curating a forthcoming exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, marking the 100th anniversary of Shirley Chisholm's birth. She would turn 100 this November. Professor Fraser, thanks so much for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Zinga Fraser: Thank you so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: By way of introduction, do you want to say a little bit about what the mission of the Shirley Chisholm Project at Brooklyn College is?

Zinga Fraser: Of course. The Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn women's activism for over 12 years has served as a research and archival entity that preserves the history of Chisholm's political life and the activism of women in Brooklyn. We're also the repository of Chisholm's archive where we also facilitate free and public educational programming. In the tradition of Chisholm, the project also examined social and political issues that grounded Chisholm's political life, like issues around women in politics, equity and education, racial and economic disparities, as well as criminal justice and immigration.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we invite your phone calls on the 1972 Shirley Chisholm presidential campaign, taking oral history calls, as we like to do in our history segments. Is anybody listening right now who happened to vote for Shirley Chisholm in 1972? Is anybody listening right now who just remembers Shirley Chisholm on the campaign trail for president in 1972, or anybody else with a personal story that relates to that presidential campaign, the Shirley Chisholm candidacy in particular? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text for our guest Zinga Fraser from Brooklyn College.

Shirley Chisholm grew up on Prospect Avenue in Crown Heights and would go on to teachers' college at Columbia for her master's. What else would you like to add about her early life and how it set her up for politics?

Zinga Fraser: She's also an alum of Brooklyn College as well. Chisholm, as early, she grows up in Brooklyn. She comes out of a rich Caribbean Barbados, where her parents are both from. She's part of that quoting or trajectory of emerging Black, political, Caribbean immigrants who emerge in the 1930s. A lot of her life revolved around Brooklyn, but also, earlier before she gets into politics, she also lives in Barbados for a number of years and has her primary education in Barbados. She's also a very diasporic figure and subject.

Brian Lehrer: In 1972, the context of that campaign for the Democratic nomination, the field included South Dakota Senator George McGovern, who of course, got the nomination that year. He ran very much as an anti-Vietnam war candidate. Chisholm was also anti-war. How did she distinguish herself from McGovern?

Zinga Fraser: In many ways, she distinguished herself from McGovern in that she had a particular belief that she wanted to create a coalition that really crossed age, race, gender, class. She found a way to collectively bargain or try to collectively bargain the platform for the Democratic campaign. She was against abortion. She was pro-choice, and so she's really trying to push the McGovern campaign and the Democratic party to really come out in support of abortion and a woman's right to choose. At that time, McGovern was very leery about taking that stance.

Brian Lehrer: If we assume that Chisholm knew she wasn't going to win the nomination, what was she trying to achieve by running?

Zinga Fraser: She's really trying to change the platform. She's trying to not only bring in new and vibrant people into the Democratic party, and she's really trying to say, "We want a true Democratic Party that represents all people, specifically marginalized people." Chisholm doesn't necessarily think that she's going to win, but she believes that she has a position to really change the platform and the policies of the Democratic Party.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call with a memory. Theresa in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Theresa.

Theresa: Hi. How are you? Thanks for putting me on. Second-time caller, devout listener.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Theresa: Shirley Chisholm used to live in my building. My mother was friendly with her. Shirley Chisholm was friendly with all of the neighbors. She was just very a kindhearted person, a loving person. She was the type of person she'd say, "How are you doing? How are the kids," and things like that. That's just on Livingston Street in Brooklyn between Boerum and Court.

Brian Lehrer: Remembering Shirley Chisholm, the person, not just Shirley Chisholm the politician. Beautiful. Maria in Newton, New Jersey, you are on WNYC. Hi, Maria.

Maria: Oh my goodness. Thank you for taking my call. It's my first time calling. I'm a retired journalist, and I had the opportunity of meeting some quite lovely people, and Shirley Chisholm was one of them. One of the things I did want to say is that Shirley said that it was very difficult to run as a Black person for Congress, but it was harder to run as a woman to Congress. It just amazed me that here we are now, and I was discussing this with your screener, that the Vice President of the United States is a very beautiful, intelligent, Black woman. They give her such a difficult time, but it's not for Shirley Chisholm.

She stands on shoulders of many, many people, but Shirley Chisholm was a dynamo. She was energetic. She was smart. She was pushing for the ERA, which I had written about the ERA many, many times. She had a vision, just like Martin Luther King did. She had a vision, and she was pushing for it. It's a great memory.

Brian Lehrer: Maria, thank you for that memory. Professor Fraser, we're doing this in the context of Black History Month. We could just as easily be doing this in the context of Women's History Month, right?

Zinga Fraser: Yes, definitely. She transforms, and we could do it any other month either [laughs].

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Zinga Fraser: Because she's so relevant. She's so relevant to a discussion. Chisholm is talking about police brutality during her time when there isn't even a term around the prison industrial complex. She's engaging in a discourse that is talking about intersectionality. The ways in which your caller discussed, Chisholm, and even the opening of the segment, really talks to the ways in which Chisholm saw herself as an intersectional figure, and what the toll of being Black and being a woman, but also being someone who's unbought and unbossed.

She was disliked more because of her radicalism around policies and her inability to cow down to machine politics in a large, strong, and powerful democratic party. That's what gets, even though we love Chisholm in this present moment, we all have to remember that Chisholm was not beloved in many ways because of the politics that she embodied.

Brian Lehrer: It's so interesting to listen back to her speeches from the campaign trail in 1972. One thing that's striking is her approach to power. Here's just a 10-second clip from the speech we heard a bit of earlier, introducing her campaign. 10-seconds of Shirley Chisholm.

Shirley Chisholm: 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.

[applause]

Brian Lehrer: More oral history. Lucy in Westchester, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lucy.

Lucy: Hi. Thank you so much for this and thank you for all your shows. I just was a 10-year-old white girl in a tiny town in Minnesota in 1972. Shirley Chisholm was just my hero. Absolutely. Maybe my mom introduced her to me, I don't know, but I just was fascinated by her. Her views on women probably is what drew me to her, but I'm going to be honest, it was also her clothes [chuckles]. I grew up to be a costume designer, and she was so well dressed, and just the way she could speak and how forceful and articulate, and then she just looked so fantastic. I was mesmerized by her. I had Shirley Chisholm for President signs and pins that I made. I just thought she was amazing.

Brian Lehrer: In a small town in Minnesota. Lucy, thank you very much. At the Museum of the City of New York, Shirley Chisholm's Centennial Exhibit that you're co-curating, Dr. Fraser, there going to be anything about her clothes?

Zinga Fraser: Yes. We actually have a number of items from the film because I was a historical consultant for the new film that's coming out on Netflix on the 22nd of March with Regina King and John Ridley as the writer and producer. We'll have some great pieces of Chisholm's clothing, and talking about Chisholm as her clothing and her style also is replicative of her being bold and unbought and unbossed and going outside of the norm of what we consider to be the dress of politicians.

Brian Lehrer: Don in Manhattan worked on her campaign in 1966 when she ran for Congress, he says. Hi, Don, you're on WNYC, and I apologize, we have just 30 seconds for you.

Don: Hi, Brian. Edna Kelly was a democratic machine Congresswoman for Bedford-Stuyvesant. She very famously said that she's not worried about the Civil Rights people in Bedford-Stuyvesant because she knows [unintelligible 00:14:22] with her monkeys. Shirley Chisholm grabbed a hold of that and ran with that, and that was one of the things that got her going in '66.

Brian Lehrer: Don, thank you so much. Last question, Professor Fraser. How did Chisholm's campaign in '72 set the stage for Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns the following decade? If you think in any even for Barack Obama.

Zinga Fraser: I think in many ways it tested the possibilities of what forming a coalition that really crossed age and race and gender and class. It's something that Jesse Jackson connects to when he envisions a Rainbow Coalition, and when we think about the Obama election, the importance of young people at the center of Chisholm, '72 campaign were young people and also them getting the right to vote at the age of 18. All of those things, I think, were really a way in which was a litmus test that allowed upcoming people who were not necessarily involved in politics, but got involved in politics because Chisholm redefined what presidential elections should look like and who had the capability and should be able to run.

She's saying, "This is not the domain of just white men. We need to create a way in which we see ourselves at the highest levels in this country." For those of you who are also interested in oral histories, we do a number of oral histories at the Chisholm Project, and those of you who have any kind of engagement with Chisholm, we would love to interview you for our oral histories as well.

Brian Lehrer: Zinga Fraser is assistant professor of Africana Studies and Women's and Gender Studies and director of the Shirley Chisholm Project at Brooklyn College. Thank you so much for joining us today. This was wonderful.

[music]

Zinga Fraser: Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to pick it up with part 2 of our Black History Month, presidential election year looks, next week when we talk about the Jesse Jackson campaign.

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