Shirley Chisholm, (1924 - 2005), was an American politician and the first African American woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress.
Shirley was the daughter of immigrants; her father was from British Guiana (now Guyana) and her mother from Barbados.

An education consultant for New York City’s day-care division, she was also active with community and political groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and her district’s Unity Democratic Club. In 1964–68 she represented her Brooklyn district in the New York state legislature.

Chisholm, a founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus, supported the Equal Rights Amendment and legalized abortions throughout her congressional career, which lasted from 1969 to 1983. She wrote the autobiographical works Unbought and Unbossed (1970) and The Good Fight (1973).

After her retirement from Congress, Chisholm remained active on the lecture circuit. She held the position of Purington Professor at Mount Holyoke College (1983–87) and was a visiting scholar at Spelman College (1985). In 1993 she was invited by President Bill Clinton to serve as ambassador to Jamaica but declined because of poor health.

Chisholm was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.

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