Shirley Chisholm quotes - page 2

My grandmother had a fantastic influence in my life. She would always check homework, and she would, each night she would "Repeat it to me." And if I didn't stand up straight, she said, "Child"-this is the way she'd talk-"Child, you got to stand up straight, let the world see you coming." And I would have to stand up straight...And she would say, "And don't slur your words." She, oh, she was pushy. My grandmother-I would say that my granny had the greatest influence in my life. (Shirley Chisholm)
The income for domestics in this country. Domestic workers. Every year we had the increase in income domestic workers never, never fit into the scale of things. View quote
Shirley Chisholm
different women view different segments of the women's movement agenda as priority items. View quote
Shirley Chisholm
for those who thought I was the best candidate but chose to work for someone else because they viewed my campaign as hopeless, they will need to reexamine their thinking for truly, no woman will ever achieve the presidency as long as their potential supporters hold this view. View quote
Shirley Chisholm
We must reject the thought of Saint Paul who said, "let the woman marry in silence." View quote
Shirley Chisholm
when I first announced that I was running for Congress, both male and females advised me, as they had when I ran for the New York State Assembly, go back to teaching, a woman's vocation, and leave the politics to men. View quote
Shirley Chisholm
Frantz Fanon pointed out in Black Skin, White Masks, that the anti-Semitic was eventually the anti-negro. I want to say that eventually both are antifeminist and even further, I want to indicate that all discrimination is essentially the same thing – anti-humanism. That is my charge to those of you in the audience this morning, whether you are male or female. View quote
Shirley Chisholm
I am completely opposed to increasing the debt ceiling without basic tax reform. What we need in this country today is leadership which has the courage to call for income tax reform to put the burden where it must be placed, on those who can afford to pay. View quote
Shirley Chisholm
There was one all-black student group, the Harriet Tubman Society. Some upperclassmen had started it, about a year before I joined it in my sophomore year. There I first heard people other than my father talk about white oppression, black racial consciousness, and black pride. The black students kept to their own tables in the cafeteria. We talked. No one said "rap" then, but that's what we did. I had some things to contribute, more out of my reading than my experience. I knew about Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois and George W. Carver, and I had managed to find some books in the public library about our African heritage that few people then studied or talked about; I knew about the Ashanti kingdoms, for instance. View quote
Shirley Chisholm
Some other black political leaders scolded me. I told them that no one has a right to call himself a leader unless he dares to lead. View quote
Shirley Chisholm
Youth is in the process of being classed with the dark-skinned minorities as the object of popular scorn and hatred. It is as if the United States has to have a "nigger," a target for its hidden frustrations and guilt. Without someone to blame, like the Communists abroad and the young and black at home, middle America would be forced to consider whether all the problems of our time were in any way its own fault. That is the one thing it could never stand to do. Hence, it finds scapegoats. (Shirley Chisholm)
Apparently launching those new [domestic social] programs can be delayed for a while, after all. It seems we have to get some missiles launched first. View quote
Shirley Chisholm