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

“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”

“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”

“Shirley Chisholm's Unbought and Unbossed book web site by editor Scot Simpson”