We Americans are not very good about recalling events and people from very far in the past. Many young Americans tend to see anything prior to the 1980s as nearly prehistoric, so when the name Shirley Chisholm is mentioned a blank is probably drawn. I remember her well because she was the first serious African American candidate to run for president. This was before Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton who both lacked even the appeal she had over 35 years ago. In 2005 the year when she died the documentary Chisholm 72: Unbought and Unbossed premiered on PBS.
Like Barack Obama, Shirley Chisholm came from an exotic background. Her mother was from Barbados and her father was from Guyana.
Though many Americans may have forgotten her, a little over two years ago one of my Turkish students named Musa proved he had not. A man in his 50s, he told me that he was a great admirer of Shirley Chisholm. I was very moved to hear this.
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