#representher

Shirley Chisholm was a longtime Congresswoman from Brooklyn, New York.  She was a woman who would never back down from anything that she believed in and would fight for everything that she believed to be necessary to fight for. In 1968, Chisholm made history by becoming the first African American woman to be elected into Congress.  However, before that she was an elementary school teacher and also from 1959-1964, she was an educational consultant for New York City’s Bureau of Child Welfare.  When she took office, she shocked Congress by demanding reassignment after being assigned to the House Forestry Committee.  As a freshman Congresswoman, this was unheard of.  She was granted the change and put on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee before eventually being put on the House Education and Labor Committee.  In 1969, she was also a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.  She was also one of the four founding women of the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971.

Shirley Chisholm ran to become the Democratic candidate for the President of the United States.  She was the first African American woman to run for the position, and many people viewed her candidacy as symbolic, rather than as a viable candidate, which hurt her numbers.  Another major challenge she faced was money and endorsements.  The Black Caucus, which she helped found, would not officially give her their full backing, and even some of her political friends would not officially endorse her.  She was only on the ballot for 11 states, and received votes from 14 states in some capacity. Money prevented her from entering many of the primaries.  When she entered the Democratic National Convention, she had 28 delegates.  However, she would end up with 151 delegate votes.  She became the first African American woman to get delegate votes at a convention and the first woman to get delegate votes at the convention.  Overall, she spent about $300,000 throughout the campaign.  She garnered most of her votes from young college voters, women, and minorities.  She continued to serve as a Congresswoman until 1982. 

Kamala Harris is one of the newest Senators in the United States Senate.  Before she became US Senator from California, she graduated from the Howard University with her bachelor’s of arts degree and then went to the University of California, Hastings College of the Law to get her law degree.  After school, she interned at the Alameda County District Attorney’s (DA) office and was one of two women to become interns there at the time.  After being an intern, she was offered a job as a deputy DA for the county.  In 2003, she challenged an eight year-incumbent to become the District Attorney of San Francisco, and won.  This made her the first woman, African-American, and South Asian District Attorney for San Francisco.  She challenged those who believed that there were only two ways to punish crime, either by being hard on crime or soft on it, by saying that we need to be “Smart on Crime,” which also was the title of her book on criminal justice reform and criminal justice in San Francisco. 

In 2010, Harris ran for Attorney General of the state of California.  She succeeded in her bid and became the 32nd Attorney General and the first female, African American, and South Asian to hold the office.  While holding the office, she focused on trying to protect the environment, prevent drugs and guns from being brought into the state from Mexico, fighting against human trafficking, and trying to reduce the rate of recidivism in the state.  She also fought the banking and real estate markets to try to get rid of any elements of the foreclosure crisis from occurring once more.  Her office has worked to try to make the necessary technological advances and help the access of these to the public when possible. 

Patsy Mink was the first woman of color to ever be elected into either house of the United States Congress.  She took office in 1965 and served until 1977 before being returning to office again in 1990 up until her death in 2002.  Before going into office she founded the Oahu Young Democrats in 1954, and then started working as an attorney for the Hawaii territorial house of representatives in 1955.  In 1956 she got elected to the territorial house of representatives, in which she would serve again in 1958.  She would get elected to the Hawaii Senate in 1958 until 1959, when she tried unsuccessfully for Hawaii’s sole seat in the United States House of Representatives, once Hawaii was made a state.  She returned to the Hawaii state Senate in 1962 and served until 1964, when she ran for the second seat that Hawaii was given in the US House of Representatives.  She prided herself on using grass-roots movements to get elected to office.  One of her most passionate causes was education.  She served on the state Senate education committee, and the US House education committee from 1965-1977.  She also introduced or sponsored many education related bills, such as the first childcare bill, bills introducing, student loans, bilingual education, special education, Head Start, the Women’s Education Equity Act, and Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments.  She also served on the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs from her second term until 1977, and served on the House Budget Committee from 1973-1977

She lost a bid in 1977 for the US Senate, and took time away from US Congress, by returning to Hawaii and getting a position on Honolulu’s city council and served from 1983-1987.  She tried, unsuccessfully to become governor of Hawaii in 1986 and mayor of Honolulu in 1988, before returning to the US House of Representatives in 1990.  She was again given a seat on the Education committee, which had been renamed the Committee on Education and Labor, and would be renamed again the Committee on Education and the Workforce.  She would also receive spots on the Government Operations Committee, later renamed the Government Reform Committee, as well as the Natural Resources Committee during 1993-1995 and the Budget Committee from 1993-1999.  During this time, she also organized and led the Democratic Women’s Caucus in 1995.