On this day in New York · November 5, 1968
Brooklyn Sends Shirley Chisholm to Congress
A sound truck rolling through Bedford-Stuyvesant announced "fighting Shirley Chisholm" was coming through, and on Election Day the district answered by sending the first Black woman in American history to Congress.
The facts
- Date
- November 5, 1968
- District
- New York's 12th, centered in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
- Opponent
- James Farmer, former CORE director, running as a Liberal Party candidate with Republican support
- Margin
- Won by approximately a two-to-one margin
On November 5, 1968, voters in New York's 12th congressional district, anchored in Bedford-Stuyvesant, elected Shirley Chisholm to the U.S. House of Representatives, making her the first Black woman ever elected to Congress. She ran on the slogan "Unbought and unbossed," having already beaten two Black rivals, State Senator William S. Thompson and labor official Dollie Robertson, in the June Democratic primary. In the general election she faced James Farmer, the former director of the Congress of Racial Equality, who ran as a Liberal Party candidate with Republican backing and had far more national name recognition. Chisholm campaigned block by block in a sound truck instead, and won by roughly a two-to-one margin. She would spend the next seven terms representing that same Brooklyn district before running for president in 1972.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
Ladies and gentlemen, this is fighting Shirley Chisholm coming through.
Announcement broadcast from Chisholm's campaign sound truck as it drove through Brooklyn housing projects during the 1968 race
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
Chisholm's win broke a door open that had never even been unlocked, and she used the seat to found the Congressional Black Caucus and push issues, from childcare to minimum wage for domestic workers, that Washington had ignored. Every Black woman who has since run for federal office, up to and including the presidency, is running a race Chisholm ran first, out of a rowhouse district in Brooklyn.
Sources
Get the day it happened, the day it happens.
Every morning brief ends with this day in New York history, and every day adds a page to this almanac. Free, in your inbox.
Free to start. The unsubscribe link actually works.