Shirley Chisholm Black Quotations

Of my two "handicaps," being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black

I've always met more discrimination being a woman than being Black...men are men.

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.

In the end anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.

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.

As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers - a great pity on both counts.

I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish. 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 think, that our society is not yet either just or free.

I had met far more discrimination because I am a woman than because I am black.

Of my two `handicaps,' being female put more obstacles in my path than being black.

As a black person I am no stranger to prejudice. But the truth is that in the political world I have been far more often discriminated against because I am a woman than because I am black.