"The difference between de jure and de facto segregation is the difference between open, forthright bigotry and the shamefaced kind that works through unwritten agreements between real estate dealers, school officials, and local politicians."

“The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers — a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.”

“Shirley Chisholm's 1972 Presidential Campaign”

“Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.”

“Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time. Even when the problems it ignores build up to crises and erupt in strikes, riots, and demonstrations, it has not moved. Its idea of meeting a problem is to hold hearings or, in extreme cases, to appoint a commission.”

“I don't measure America by its achievement but by its potential.”

“Before Hillary Clinton, there was Shirley Chisholm", Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC News”