Shirley Chisholm Had Guts

Recently, while playing Trivial Pursuit with my parents, Mr. Shakes and I got a question about which member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet was the only person eligible to run for the Czech presidency. Without hesitation, I answered, “Madeleine Albright,” reached for the die and rolled again. After a moment, I realized everyone else was looking at me a bit incredulously. “What?”

“How the heck did you know that?” my dad asked.

“I’m a political junkie,” I reminded him, and for the first time, it seemed like he actually began to grasp the breadth of my knowledge. It wasn’t showing myself for years to be well-versed on issues, policy, candidates, history…it was answering an esoteric Trivial Pursuit question. “I know my stuff,” I said.

“You know your stuff,” he acquiesced.

I’ve known my stuff for a long time now, feeling since a very young age that understanding and being involved in politics was the right and responsibility of everyone. It has been a passion for as long as I can remember, as close to religion as I get. Today, one of the women who most inspired me, who stirred in me my ardor and excitement for politics, for change, has died.

I can remember learning about Shirley Chisholm for the first time. I was 11. I thought she was brave, brainy, ballsy, and totally cool. She was the first black woman elected to Congress and a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and although being a trailblazer was certainly part of her appeal, it was the fire in her belly and her desire to do the right thing that appealed to me most, which I most wanted to emulate—a passion so strong that it conveyed itself to me from the pages of books. Ms. Chisholm had retired two years before I ever heard her name.

Shirley Chisholm was the kind of politician that we long for – someone Unbought and Unbossed, who spoke her mind and challenged the status quo, even when it wasn’t politically expedient. She was tough, but not uncompromising, and ambitious, without ever losing her empathy. She was a legend, and a rare one at that, actually having duly earned her extraordinary reputation.

Once discussing what her legacy might be, Shirley Chisholm commented, "I'd like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts. That's how I'd like to be remembered."

I can’t imagine remembering her any other way.