Shirley Anita Chisholm was an American politician, educator, and author. In 1968, she became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress. She represented New York’s 12th congressional district for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In the 1972 U.S. presidential election, she was the first African-American candidate for a major party’s nomination for President. She died of cancer on November 30, 2013, at age 90, at her home in Queens, New York.
About Shirley Chisholm in brief
Shirley Anita Chisholm was an American politician, educator, and author. In 1968, she became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress. She represented New York’s 12th congressional district for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In the 1972 U.S. presidential election, she was the first African-American candidate for a major party’s nomination for President. In 2015, Chisolm was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contributions to American politics, education, and the arts. She died on November 28, 2015, at the age of 94. She is survived by her husband, Conrad O. O. St. Hill, and three children. She was a member of the Harriet Tubman Society and the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. Her husband was a former private investigator who specialized in negligence-based lawsuits. He had migrated from Barbados in the late 1940s and later became a private investigator in Jamaica. He died in the early 1990s. He was buried in a private funeral in Jamaica, where he had lived since the late 1950s and early 1960s. Her children are now living in New York and Washington, D.C. They have a daughter and son-in-law, both of whom are active members of the New York City Democratic Party. They also have a son, Charles, who was born in Brooklyn and later moved to Barbados. He is the son of Charles Christopher St. Hill and Ruby Seale, who were born in Christ Church, Barbados, and moved to New York in 1921.
Her father was a laborer who sometimes worked in a factory that made burlap bags, but when he could not find factory employment instead worked as a baker’s helper. Her mother was a skilled seamstress and domestic worker. She had three younger sisters, two born within three years of St. Hill, and one later. As a result of her time on the island, she would always consider herself a Barbadian American. She attended Girls’ High School in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, a highly regarded, integrated school that attracted girls from throughout Brooklyn. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Brooklyn College in 1946, where she won prizes for her debating skills. She also became involved in local Democratic party politics in the 1950s. She retired from Congress in 1983 and taught at Mt Holyoke College, while continuing her political organizing. In her autobiography Unbought and Unbossed, she wrote: “I learned from an early age that I was somebody. I didn’t need the black revolution to tell me that’s what I wanted to do.” She later said, “If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason.’’ She died of cancer on November 30, 2013, at age 90, at her home in Queens, New York. Her son, Conrad, is now the mayor of Queens.
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