Representative Shirley Chisholm and Vice President Kamala Harris
We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors the giants who came before us.
By dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
Shirley Anita Chisholm ( November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005) in 1968, became the first black woman to be elected to the United States Congress. Chisholm represented New York's 12th congressional district, a district centered in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. Her motto and title of her autobiography—Unbought and Unbossed—illustrates her outspoken advocacy for women and minorities during her seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1972, she became the first black candidate for a major-party nomination for President of the United States and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Throughout her career, she was known for taking "a resolute stand against economic, social, and political injustices," as well as being a strong supporter of black civil rights and women's rights.”
With Kamala Harris’ historic candidacy, I thought it would be an opportune time to look at the shoulders of a historic giant that VP Kamala’s candidacy is standing on. Without Chisholm’s historic candidacy, Harris’ campaign would have been different without this historic trailblazer setting the path. Chisholm set the stage for future Black women to hold public office. In 2020, Kamala Harris became the first African American woman to be nominated as the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate of the United States. In speeches, Harris credited Chisholm as a motivating force for her political success. While Chisholm did not win the nomination she set the stage for African American women in politics.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 30, 1924, Chisholm was the oldest of four daughters to immigrant parents. Her father, Charles St. Hill, from Guyana, was a laborer who worked in a factory that made burlap bags and as a baker's helper. Her mother, Ruby St. Hill, from Barbados, was a skilled seamstress and domestic worker who experienced the difficulty of working outside the home while simultaneously raising her children.
As a result of her parent’s financial struggles, in November 1929, when Shirley turned five, she and her two sisters were sent to Barbados to live with their maternal grandmother. Shirley later said, "Granny gave me strength, dignity, and love. I learned from an early age that I was somebody. I didn't need the black revolution to teach me that."
Shirley and her sisters lived on their grandmother's farm in Barbados, where Shirley attended a one room schoolhouse. She later returned to the United States in 1934. As a result of her time in Barbados, Shirley spoke with a West Indian accent throughout her life.
In her 1970 autobiography, Unbought and Unbossed, she wrote: "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British-style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason.
Shirley graduated from Brooklyn Girls’ High in 1942 and from Brooklyn College cum laude in 1946, where she won prizes on the debate team. Although professors encouraged her to consider a political career, she replied that she faced a “double handicap” as both Black and female.
Initially, Chisholm worked as a nursery school teacher. In 1949, she married Conrad Q. Chisholm, a private investigator (they divorced in 1977). She earned a master’s degree from Columbia University in early childhood education in 1951. By 1960, she was a consultant to the New York City Division of Day Care. Ever aware of racial and gender inequality, she joined local chapters of the League of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Urban League, as well as the Democratic Party club in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
In 1964, Chisholm ran for and became the second African American in the New York State Legislature. After court-ordered redistricting created a new, heavily Democratic, district in her neighborhood, in 1968 Chisholm sought—and won—a seat in Congress. There, “Fighting Shirley” introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation and championed racial and gender equality, the plight of the poor, and ending the Vietnam War. She was a co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971, and in 1977 became the first Black woman and second woman ever to serve on the powerful House Rules Committee. That year she married Arthur Hardwick Jr., a New York State legislator.
During her time, there were few females and Black elected officials in office, and they knew they could not challenge the political establishment. If they did, they faced the wrath of being voted out of office. Chisholm was courageous in challenging the establishment and galvanizing women and minorities in her district in Brooklyn, New York, and across the entire country. Chisholm was unapologetic in her demeanor and approach to supporting the issues for which she was unwavering in her conviction. Throughout her life, she focused on rights for women, minorities, and people of lower economic means.
Discrimination followed Chisholm’s quest for the 1972 Democratic Party presidential nomination. She was blocked from participating in televised primary debates, and after taking legal action, was permitted to make just one speech. Still, students, women, and minorities followed the “Chisholm Trail.” She entered 12 primaries and garnered 152 of the delegates’ votes (10% of the total)—despite an under-financed campaign and contentiousness from the predominantly male Congressional Black Caucus.
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Chisholm retired from Congress in 1983. She taught at Mount Holyoke College and co-founded the National Political Congress of Black Women. In 1991 she moved to Florida, and later declined the nomination to become U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica due to ill health. Of her legacy, Chisholm said, “I want to be remembered as a woman … who dared to be a catalyst of change.”
There are few historical figures who have made such an impact on politics as to continue influencing the political landscape of American politics decades after leaving public office. Her influence was based on her grit and self-determination. She believed that politics was about making a difference and fighting against what she believed was a double-dose of evil — racial and gender discrimination. Chisholm was also a role model and exemplified the achievement of the American Dream, rising from the child of immigrants to reach political success in the United States.
We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors the giants who came before us. Lets make history this November, yes we can!
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The racist and sexist attacks on Democratic nominee-in-waiting Kamala Harris were as predictable as they were familiar for those who watched Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton vie for the Oval Office job. A “DEI hire,” sneered Republican Representative Tim Burchett. A “childless cat lad[y]” with no “direct stake” in America because she had not given birth to children, Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance said (perhaps forgetting that no U.S. president has ever given birth). “Laughing Kamala,” Donald Trump dubbed her, while Fox news ran a video of “giggling” Harris laughing in a variety of situations. It’s “one reason voters seem to detest Kamala Harris,” host Sean Hannity said.
Here we go again. But this time, it’s a double whammy—not only is Harris being hit for her “otherness” (including desperate attempts to say she is not qualified to run for president because her parents were not born in the United States), but she is getting the same gender-based treatment Hillary Clinton did in 2008 and 2016, with conservative foes calling her unqualified (despite a long career in public service) and the crude crowd on social media referring to her “sordid sexual history” and calling her the “side chick” who slept her way to the top after briefly dating former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown decades ago.
Obama survived the racist assaults to win, helped by the late Senator John McCain pushing back against the bigotry launched at his general election foe; and while she garnered a majority of the popular vote, Clinton barely lost her presidential race to Trump, who needled her relentlessly with gender-based comments. Can Harris overcome both lines of attack—especially since Trump has made such bias-based attacks central to his campaign?
As recently as 2020, the answer might have been no, with pundits predicting that America was “not ready” for a Black and Asian female to hold the world’s most powerful job. The chattering class has argued that America’s first female president would have to be someone in the mold of a Margaret Thatcher—conservative, “traditional” (reportedly cooking for her husband nightly, and sometimes for her Cabinet), and less threatening to men. Worries about a Black and Asian woman’s electability abound, especially with a second Trump presidency a real possibility. (I have articulated some of them myself in these pages.) Hollywood screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, displaying a clinical cluelessness about the importance of abortion rights to Democratic women in particular, penned a New York Times op-ed before President Joe Biden dropped out, arguing for Democrats to nominate Republican Senator Mitt Romney—a “safe” white guy who opposes virtually everything Democratic except the desire to keep Trump out of the White House.
But this year, Harris may benefit from a perfect storm made up of shifting demographics and a post-Dobbs environment. More than three decades after the Year of the Woman sent then-record numbers of women to Congress, a Harris victory could be the prize accomplishment of another historic year for her sex—this one defined by an electoral revolt by women upset about the loss of reproductive rights.
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Advocates are concerned the decision will suppress the teaching of Black history, as local districts would have to pay for the course from their own funds. NBC News: Georgia denies state funding to teach AP Black studies classes
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Georgia is refusing to provide state funding for the new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies, so some school districts have cancelled plans to teach the course to high schoolers.
Advocates complain that the decision by Georgia’s elected school superintendent will suppress teaching about Black history, just like officials did in Florida, Arkansas and some other places.
“The fact that AP African American studies was removed from our schools is alarming and an injustice to our students who eagerly anticipated taking this course,” state Rep. Jasmine Clark, a Democrat from Lilburn, said in a statement. “Erasure of black history from our schools is not and never will be okay!”
The State Board of Education, appointed by the governor, must approve a class for it to be eligible for state funding, which helps pay for a teacher’s salary and class materials. Superintendent Richard Woods decided he won’t recommend approval of the class to the board, but didn’t say why.
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The beauty with the undeniably gorgeous face recently opened up about her life and career in a new interview. Elle: Anok Yai Is One of On
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Subverting people’s expectations is something she’s been doing forever. In middle school, Yai loved putting together eccentric and elaborate looks. “My style was nonsense. I would have themes on certain days. One day, I’d wear all fur—fur boots, a fur jacket, a fur hat, even a fur wallet that had my flip phone in it,” she says. “I’ve always been the person who never cared to try to fit in. Kids always saw that as weird, but now as I grow into myself, I think it’s a special quality that I have.”
Since becoming a professional model in 2017, Yai has walked for Mugler, Versace, and Saint Laurent; she was also the second Black woman, after Naomi Campbell in 1995, to open a Prada show (at Milan Fashion Week in 2018). She still remembers the day that she told her parents she was dropping out of Plymouth State University, where she was studying biochemistry, to model full-time. “They were really scared,” she says. “My parents were more academic and didn’t know anything about the fashion world. I remember I gave my mom this Fendi bag that Karl Lagerfeld had given me, and she didn’t even know what Fendi was. She was like, ‘Oh, cute.’ And then put it in her room. I don’t know if she’s ever worn it.” But her parents knew that she had always loved fashion, so “they didn’t fight me that hard, but they were definitely terrified,” she adds.
Born in Cairo, Egypt, to South Sudanese parents, Yai and her family immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Manchester, New Hampshire when she was four. As a young girl, she kept to herself. “I struggled a lot with social anxiety,” Yai says. “I was the kid in the corner who didn’t talk to anybody. I never really had a set friend group. I was more of a floater. I was always on the outside looking in.” It also wasn’t easy being a Black girl in a predominantly white area. “Growing up dark-skinned in New Hampshire, there was a lot of racism,” she says. “A lot of kids made fun of me for my skin color.” But she was always able to see beyond her circumstances. “I always knew I was meant for bigger things than the small town that I came from,” she says. “I think that allowed me to feel comfortable with my separation from my peers.”
Today, Yai is reserved, calm, and cool. When we meet at the Brooklyn Museum in early May, she’s in incognito mode—wearing an oversized gray velour Alexander Wang jacket, dark-wash denim, a black beanie, and two layers of silver necklaces. As we walk through one of the museum’s exhibits, “Giants: Art From the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys,” Yai slowly moves from piece to piece, stopping every so often to take a photo or to read a description. “I’m getting inspiration for my upcoming art pieces,” she explains.
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What happens when you take a disease that is infamous for affecting a particular demographic and turn it into a superpower? Well, you might get a hit show, for one. Supacell, Netflix’s recent Black British superhero series, defies the notion that audiences have had enough of monotonous heroes on the small screen—it boasts a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and reached the No. 1 spot on Netflix’s top 10 global television list, where it still remains in the top five nearly a month after its premiere. Created by Rapman—an English rapper turned screenwriter famous for creating Blue Story—Supacell feels like a much more PG version of The Boys crossed with the gritty Black British crime drama Top Boy. The show has all the personality of its predecessors—and where Top Boy is concerned, the same setting of East London—but it provides something new for fantasy and drama lovers alike. Obviously, a show focused exclusively on supercharged Black people living in a poor neighborhood is already a rare thing. But Supacell stands out even more due to the culturally specific origin story it offers for its heroes: sickle cell anemia.
Sickle cell disease—a disorder that complicates the ease of blood flow throughout the body and, at times, to vital organs—is one of the top five most common genetic disorders in the U.S. In the U.K., SCD is the most common genetic disorder, affecting about 17,000 people in England alone, per the National Health Service. Of these numbers, the disease is disproportionately found among the Black population, some of whom fully possess the disorder and some of whom carry the recessive trait. The genetic lottery of SCD, and the fact that it is so prevalent in a particular community, makes it an inspired starting point for superhero lore.
In Supacell—perhaps the name now makes a little more sense?—we meet five main characters in East London, all of whom are down on their luck and each of whom carries the recessive trait for sickle cell. Right on cue, one day they find themselves randomly and inexplicably able to wield a superhuman power. There’s Tazer (Josh Tedeku), a young gang leader embroiled in a turf war who realizes he can turn invisible when he suddenly can’t see himself in the mirror; Rodney (Calvin Demba), a small-time (like, very small-time) drug dealer who actualizes his superspeed when he accidentally runs all the way to Scotland in a matter of seconds; Sabrina (Nadine Mills), a deftly competent yet oft-microaggressed nurse who finds out she is telekinetic when she accidentally slams her cheating boyfriend against a wall; and Andre (Eric Kofi Abrefa), a financially unstable father struggling after recently getting out of prison, who first awakens to his superstrength when he bursts open a wall-embedded ATM.
Then there’s the group’s ringleader of sorts, Michael (Tosin Cole), who starts off as a deliveryman trying to save up to better provide for his longtime girlfriend, until he accidentally time-travels to the future. There, he finds out not only that he can manipulate time but that he will wind up aligning himself with the other four in what appears to be a good-vs.-evil supe war. Of course, because Michael is the only one aware of the future, it becomes his job to find the other four—strangers to him in the present day—and persuade them to team up against a looming evil they’re unlikely to believe is actually out there.
Perhaps more interesting than their powers, though, is the fact that each of our heroes is a sympathetic underdog—even Tazer, whose moments on-screen involve multiple stabbings in smaller battles within a larger gang war. Although many supe origin stories involve underdogs finally possessing something that helps them come out on top, Supacell maps its narrative onto realistic socioeconomic concerns. Every main character in the series is struggling with a lack of money and the impacts of systemic racism;
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