The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: It's a girl.
I want history to remember me... not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and who dared to be herself. I want to be remembered as a catalyst for change in America.
We must reject not only the stereotypes that others have of us but also those that we have of ourselves.
Service is the rent that you pay for room on this earth.
Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.
I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo. The next time a woman runs, or a black, a Jew, or anyone from a group that the country is 'not ready' to elect to its highest office, I believe that he or she will be taken seriously from the start.
There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price.
Of course laws will not eliminate prejudice from the hearts of human beings. But that is no reason to allow prejudice to continue to be enshrined in our laws - to perpetuate injustice through inaction.
I'm looking to no man walking this earth for approval of what I'm doing.
America has the laws and the material resources it takes to insure justice for all its people. What it lacks is the heart, the humanity, the Christian love that it would take.
The liberals in the House strongly resemble liberals I have known through the last two decades in the civil rights conflict. When it comes time to show on which side they will be counted, they excuse themselves.
It is obvious that discrimination exists. Women do not have the opportunities that men do. And women that do not conform to the system, who try to break with the accepted patterns, are stigmatized as odd and unfeminine.
I have certainly met much more discrimination in terms of being a woman than being black, in the field of politics.
Our representative democracy is not working because the Congress that is supposed to represent the voters does not respond to their needs. I believe the chief reason for this is that it is ruled by a small group of old men.
I know that millions of Americans from all walks of life agree with me that leadership does not mean putting the ear to the ground to follow public opinion, but to have the vision of what is necessary and the courage to make it possible.
Women have learned to flex their political muscles. You got to flex that muscle to get what you want.
I'd like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts. That's how I'd like to be remembered.
I ran because somebody had to do it first. In this country, everybody is supposed to be able to run for president, but that has never really been true.
I am not the candidate of Black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the woman's movement of this country, although I am a woman and I am equally proud of that.
My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn't always discuss for reasons of political expediency.
