CALL IT A CASE of collective amnesia.
From the largest to the most obscure, America’s media organisations understandably heralded Hillary Clinton’s elevation to the leadership of the Democratic Party as its standard bearer in the November presidential battle against the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump.
“Her! Clinton makes history as the first female Prez nominee,” proclaimed the mass circulation Daily News of New York after Clinton clinched the top spot with primary election victories in California, New Jersey and New Mexico against US Senator Bernie Sanders. The New York Times took a more sedate posture. “Clinton claims the Democratic Nomination: A long Journey fuelled by Grit, to the Finish,” stated the paper.
But through it all, there was a hardly a mention of the Bajan-New Yorker, Shirley Anita Chisholm, and the role she played by starting the first serious run by a woman in the 1972 for the country’s presidency.
“I am, in a way, offended that in this moment of triumph for women that one of the pioneers in the struggle for women political empowerment has been ignored,” said Professor Calvin Holder, a Harvard University-trained Bajan historian at Staten Island College of the City University of New York. “Over and over, there has been a tendency to downplay the contributions of African-Americans, whether we are speaking of politics or any other significant human endeavour.
“Chisholm paved the way for Obama and indeed for Hillary Clinton because she had the vision, the tenacity to run for an office that was often seen as being beyond the reach of a black person” and of a woman, added Holder.
Chisholm, who was born in New York on November 30, 1924, was the first black woman elected to the US House of Representatives representing New York’s historic 12 Congressional District from 1968 to 1983. The feisty public figure was the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination, winning 152 first ballot votes at the 1972 Convention.
Reared, in part, by her Bajan grandmother in Barbados, Chisholm attended an elementary school in Vauxhall, Christ Church and throughout her life up to her death in 2005, she credited Barbados’ educational system for giving her an early sound foundation on which she built her career in education and politics; for the eloquence she displayed in the New York State Senate and ultimately in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail that made it acceptable for a woman to enter the presidential fray.
“I ran because someone had to do it first,” she explained later in her 1970s book, The Good Fight, which chronicled her presidential campaign.
“In this country everybody is supposed to be able to run for president. But that’s never been really true. I ran because most people think the country is not ready for a black candidate, not ready for a woman candidate. Someday . . . .”
Dr Carlos Russell, a political science professor emeritus at CUNY’s Brooklyn College, agreed with Holder on the media’s collective amnesia on the Bajan-New Yorker’s trailblazing path in presidential politics.
“I agree with Dr Holder,” said Russell, who was born in Panama and traces the roots of his family tree to Barbados and Jamaica. “Chisholm’s pioneering effort, especially during the tumultuous period of the early 1970s when she launched her presidential campaign more than paved the way for Hillary Clinton’s successful drive for the presidency in 2015 and this year. It is almost impossible in my view for Hillary Clinton to arrive at the status of being the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate without Chisholm’s groundbreaking effort.”
Her mantra, ‘Unbought and Unbossed,” typified the courage it took during those times to challenge others who aspired for the presidency,” said Prof. Russell whose grandfather was a Barbadian who went to Panama to help build the famous canal. “I believe Chisholm made it possible for America to think that a woman had the intestinal fortitude and the vision to become president of the United States.”
Not so any more!
What a pity, then, insisted both Holder and Russell, that the woman with the Bajan accent was being ignored at this time of triumph for women in the political arena.
Tony Best is the NATION’s North American Correspondent. Email: Bestra@aol.com
