"VOTE CHISHOLM 1972. UNBOUGHT AND UNBOSSED"

CHISHOLM, Shirley. Poster. Bring U.S. Together. Vote Chisholm 1972. Unbought and Unbossed. New York: N.G. Slater, 1972. Broadside, measuring 11-1/2 by 14-12 inches. $5000.

Original campaign poster for Shirley Chisholm's historic 1972 presidential campaign, where Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to Congress, became the first African-American candidate to seek a major party's nomination for the presidency.

"Before Barack Obama, before Hillary Clinton, Shirley Chisholm was both the first woman and the first African American to run for the nomination of a major party for President of the United States. Already the first black woman to be elected to the United States Congress in 1968," she was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Women's Caucus (Smithsonian). "Born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 30, 1924, Chisholm was the oldest of ffour daughters to immigrant parents… She graduated from Brooklyn Girls' High in 1942 and from Brooklyn College cum laude in 1946, where she won prizes on the debate team. Although professors encouraged her to consider a political career, she replied that she faced a 'double handicap' as both Black and female… Ever aware of racial and gender inequality, she joined local chapters of the League of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Urban League, as well as the Democratic Party in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn… After court-ordered redistricting created a new, heavily Democratic, district in her neighborhood, in 1968 Chisholm sought—and won—a seat in Congress. There, 'Fighting Shirley' introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation and championed racial and gender equality, the plight of the poor, and ending the Vietnam War… Discrimination followed Chisholm's quest for the 1972 Democratic Party presidential nomination. She was blocked from participating in primary debates, and after taking legal action, was permitted to make just one speech. Still, students, women, and minorities followed the 'Chisholm Trail.' She entered 12 primaries and garnered 152 of the delegates votes… despite an under-financed campaign and contentiousness from the predominantly male Congressional Black Caucus" (National Women's History Museum).

In Unbought and Unbossed, her first book, she calls her campaign slogan "an expression of what I believe I was and what I want to be—what I want all candidates for public office to be… There must be a new coalition of all Americans—black, white, red, yellow and brown, rich and poor… we must join together." In her nearly 15 years in Congress, Chisholm "challenged institutional customs, pushing her way into spaces that had been the reserve of white men" (Washington Post). In an interview near the end of her life, she said: "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."

Fine condition.