29 reasons to celebrate Black History Month: No. 2, Shirley Chisholm

February marks Black History Month. Follow the AJC this month for a series of short stories and videos and people, places and events that played a significant role in the development of black people in America. 

No. 2

 Shirley Chisholm: If you followed our recent presidential campaign, two of the most notable candidates not named Trump were Hillary Clinton and Ben Carson. A woman and a black man, repeating a scene we saw in 2008 when Clinton battled the man who would become the country's first black president Barack Obama. But before Obama, Clinton and Carson there was Shirley Chisholm, the seven-term congresswoman from New York City. In 1972, Chisholm who said she was "Unbought and Unbossed," became the first major-party black candidate, and the first woman from the Democratic Party, to run for President of the United States. While some saw her campaign as symbolic and unorganized, she ended up gaining 152 delegates in a race that ultimately went to George McGovern. Chisholm left the House in 1983 and died in 2005.  In 2015, Obama posthumously awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.