No one has fought more in Congress to keep alive Shirley Chisholm’s legacy than U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee. The 78-year-old California lawmaker counts the late Chisholm as a mentor and friend.
Despite making history as the first Black woman elected to Congress in 1968 and the first Black American and Black woman to run for U.S. president in 1972, it took years for the “Unbought and Unbossed” congresswoman’s trailblazing career to be recognized on Capitol Hill.
“When I came to Congress, it was really appalling to me that nobody had ever even introduced a resolution honoring her. It was like she didn’t exist,” Rep. Lee told theGrio.
Determined to cement Chisholm as the giant in U.S. politics she is, Congresswoman Lee led several efforts to honor her, including sponsoring a House resolution celebrating her contributions and achievements, establishing a tribute U.S. postal stamp, and having a portrait of Chisholm hung in the walls of Congress. Most recently, Lee led other Democrats to introduce a bill that would posthumously award Shirley Chisholm with a Congressional Gold Medal.
“The drumbeat has caught on. And so now you have post offices, you have tributes to her, you have parks named after her. But I’m really proud of the fact that I kind of started the drumbeat on her behalf,” Lee told theGrio.
Barbara Lee, whose relationship with Chisholm was depicted in the Netflix 2024 biopic “Shirley,” came to know the New York lawmaker as president of the Black Student Union at Mills College. Lee invited Chisholm to speak on the campus and was later inspired to work on her presidential campaign, eventually leading operations for the campaign in northern California.
“[I was] amazed and mesmerized and really shocked that there was a presidential candidate who not only looked like me but who could relate to issues that nobody else was talking about,” Lee reflected. “Shirley Chisholm spoke to the issues and represented the values that I always had but never realized that any elected official could be out there, elected, speaking truth to power and not giving up.”
Though Chisholm is more widely celebrated today, Lee said the public may not understand just how progressive she was during her time in office.
“Shirley Chisholm maintained her progressiveness as a mainstay. She was a Black woman, but worked with everybody. And that’s why she was so effective as a legislator,” maintained Lee. “She was who she was, and she knew how to how to negotiate and she knew how to move the ball forward politically and in terms of policy priorities without caving in to someone else’s point of view. And that’s a very important skill to have.”
Following Kamala Harris’s devastating loss in the 2024 presidential election, Democrats today could learn a lot from Chisholm, said Lee, a progressive luminary herself in Congress who, in the spirit of anti-Vietnam War Chisholm, notably cast a sole vote against the Afghanistan war in 2001.
“She would say, don’t let this right-wing MAGA victory … divide and conquer us because we’ve got to fight for equality [and] for freedom,” said Lee, who urged Democrats to “fight back and resist” in the spirit of Chisholm. “Don’t give up. These headwinds are going to be there until we break through.”
She continued, “Stay focused on lifting people out of poverty, fighting for the middle class, making sure racial equity, gender equity and equality is at the center of our agenda.”
Lee believes Chisholm would especially be fond of Harris and her historic presidential campaign to become America’s first woman, first Black woman, and first South Asian president.
“Shirley Chisholm would be applauding [her] … even though our vice president didn’t win, she opened up the path for another Black woman, another woman of color, to run,” said Lee. “I think Shirley would say continue to fight … Kamala picked up that baton and she’s still running.”
Lee aded, “I think Shirley is pleased and happy and smiling and saying, keep at it because sooner or later we’ll have a woman of color, a Black woman specifically, as our president.”
Though many Kamala Harris supporters, particularly Black women, are feeling discouraged weary following Harris’ defeat to President-elect Donald Trump, Congresswoman Lee said Shirley Chisholm would not want “any of us to give up.”
“She would say take a break,” said Lee. “Shirley was very clear about self-care and being healthy and doing all that we need to do to fortify ourselves to keep at it.”
