“I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud,” Chisholm said in her announcement as supporters cheered. In 1965, she was elected to the New York State Assembly — becoming only the second African American woman elected to the state legislature. The election meant Chisholm would be the first black woman elected to Congress — a distinction Chisholm recognized for what it was. “I want history to remember me not just as the first black woman to be elected to Congress, not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and dared to be herself,” Chisholm once stated. “Shirley Chisholm was always so clear that women supporting women would move our politics forward,” Hill told HuffPost.

Source: Washington Post January 22, 2019 11:06 UTC