“Unbossed and Unbought”: Shirley Chisholm and the Voice of the People

Sunday, November 30 is the 90th anniversary of the birth of Shirley Chisholm. The following blog post was written by Anna Bostwick Flaming.

Chisholm stamp

Image via usps.com

Shirley Chisholm, the “unbought and unbossed” African American congresswoman and 1972 Presidential candidate from the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn is the subject of a 2014 limited edition stamp.  Chisholm’s candidacy was remarkable not only because she presented Americans with the prospect of a Black woman in the Oval Office, but also because she promised to wrest electoral politics out of the hands of the rich and powerful.

 

Chisholm campaign flyer

Chisholm campaign flyer.  Lolly Eggers Papers, Iowa Women’s Archives

Shirley Chisholm viewed her campaign as an effort that would give voice to “all Americans.”  In particular, Chisholm opposed incumbent President Richard Nixon as the embodiment of a “minority government” only interested in “representing the wealthy and vested interest.”  The investigation of the Watergate scandal that began with the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and the administration’s cover-up prompted congressional legislation intended to curb abuses in campaign finance.  These reforms were substantially dismantled recently when, in a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court in McCutcheon struck down limits on the total sum that donors may contribute to candidates and parties.  Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer took the rare step of reading his dissent from the bench:  “Where money calls the tune,” he cautioned, “the voices of the people will not be heard.”  His turn of phrase suggests not just a warning about the future, but also an understanding of the past.  Just months before Watergate, Shirley Chisholm had used similar language to encourage small contributions to her 1972 Presidential campaign in donation envelopes promising to “give voice to that vast segment of the country that has never had national exposure before.”

 

Chisholm contribution envelope

Chisholm contribution envelope.  Lolly Eggers Papers, Iowa Women’s Archives

 In 1968, Chisholm had become the first African American woman elected to Congress.  In Congress, as she had in the New York State Assembly, Chisholm concerned herself with the legal, educational, and employment concerns of women and minorities.  She was a founding member of both the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Women’s Political Caucus.  During her presidential campaign, Chisholm told Roxanne Conlin – a Democrat who would later run for Iowa governor in 1982 and for the U.S. Senate in 2010 – that 1972 must be the year that “women, blacks, brown, the young, the old, activists for social change, and just people who are tired of reading the election results before the votes are counted – are going to prove that our candidates and our policies and our government are not the exclusive preserve of the financial community, the political establishment and the opinion polls.”  Chisholm wanted to direct her energies on behalf of the concerns of the people.  She offered her outspoken advocacy on behalf of civil rights legislation, the Equal Rights Amendment, and a minimum family income; she opposed wiretapping, domestic spying, and the Vietnam War.

For many, Chisholm’s candidacy signaled a broader movement for change in America.  In 1972 New York Magazine columnist Richard Reeves warned, “It’s happening in Cedar Rapids, folks.”  Edna Griffin, who in the summer of 1948 had led a successful campaign to desegregate a Des Moines lunch counter (more than seven years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama), was “quite surprised” by the support for Chisholm in Iowa.  Griffin, Roxanne Conlin, and Louise Rosenfield Noun, a prominent feminist and civil liberties activist and, later, a cofounder of the Iowa Women’s Archives, spearheaded efforts for Chisholm in Des Moines.  They established a state headquarters for Chisholm supporters in a private residence on Eleventh Street in order to reflect Chisholm’s preference for neighborhoods and community rather than “big business.  Noun later recalled that supporting Chisholm was one of the “most memorable” political adventures of her life.  In Iowa City, Chisholm supporters organized in the days leading up to the precinct caucuses.  They managed to join with the McGovern caucus to elect Sylvia T. Johnson, a Chicago native and part-time member of the Augustana College Psychology Department, as a Shirley Chisholm delegate.

 

chisholm unbossed and unbought

Image courtesy the Lolly Eggers Papers, Iowa Women’s Archives

In campaign literature, Chisholm supporters proclaimed that the presidential candidate transcended categorization as “a woman, and a Black Woman at that;” rather, Shirley Chisholm was a beacon of “new hope for our system.”  Recent events remind us that we must still reckon with the work of the “unbought and unbossed” candidate.

Update from the Iowa Women’s Archives, October 2012

Iowa Women's Archives Celebrating 20 Years

On a sunny day 20 years ago, the Iowa Women’s Archives celebrated its opening with a symposium on Iowa women in political life featuring IWA founders Louise Noun and Mary Louise Smith. En route to the symposium, Smith stopped on the Pentacrest to speak at a rally in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, which was on the ballot in Iowa the following week. The ERA went down to defeat that year, but the Iowa Women’s Archives was off to a great start.

Twenty years later, the archives holds rich collections representing diverse Iowa women. Our current exhibition, Pathways to Iowa: Migration Stories from the Iowa Women’s Archives provides a window into some of the lives represented in the collections, with an emphasis on our Mujeres Latinas collections. I hope you’ll have a chance to stop in and see the exhibition.

Sincerely,
Kären Mason, Curator

 

Honoring Linda Kerber

Our friend Linda Kerber, May Brodbeck Professor in the Liberal Arts and Sciences, retired in June. A symposium celebrating her career, A World of Citizens: Women, History, and the Vision of Linda K. Kerber, will be held October 5-6, 2012.

You can honor Dr. Kerber and support the IWA by contributing to the Linda and Richard Kerber Fund for Research in the Iowa Women’s Archives.

The Latino Midwest

The Latino MidwestA symposium at the University of Iowa, October 11-13, 2012.
Please join us in Shambaugh Auditorium on Thursday, Oct. 11, at 7:00 p.m. for a keynote address by University of California-Irvine professor of history Vicki Ruiz, “Of Poetics and Politics: The Border Journeys of Luisa Moreno.”

Following the lecture, there will be a reception in the adjoining North Exhibition Hall of the Main Library, where you’ll have a chance to see the Pathways to Iowa exhibition.

For more information. . .

Upcoming events

Thurs., Oct. 25, 5:30-6:30 p.m.
Judith Houck, “The Medicalization of Menopause Over the Past 100 Years.” Room 401, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, University of Iowa.

Saturday, Nov. 10, 10:30-noon
Suzanne O’Dea reading from her new book Madame Chairman: Mary Louise Smith and the Republican Revival after Watergate. North Exhibition Hall, UI Main Library.

Silent Spring at 50:
Watch for the date of an exhibit and program exploring the environmental activism of Rachel Carson and her friend Shirley Briggs, an Iowa City native whose papers are in the IWA. Phillips Hall Auditorium & Sciences Library.

 

Exhibition

iwaPathways to Iowa: Migration Stories from the Iowa Women’s Archives

August-November 2012.

North Exhibition Hall, Main Library, University of Iowa.

This exhibition explores a theme common to many of the collections in the Iowa Women’s Archives: migration. Documents, photos, and text illuminate the varied ways in which women from Mexico, Germany, Vietnam, and elsewhere experienced migration to Iowa between the mid-19th century and the present. The exhibition also examines the lives and work of Louise Noun and Mary Louise Smith, founders of the Iowa Women’s Archives.

Read more about the exhibition . . .