by Allison L. Williams Hill
“Do All Things In-Vesica.”
Originally posted on January 11, 2018
The Village Voice online is posting archival articles. I happened to log on and saw something that made me smile: from the December 2, 1971 issue, Vol. XVI, No. 48, the article of Brooklyn Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm’s declaration of her candidacy for President of the United States written by Mary Breasted entitled “They will remember a 100-pound woman.” Besides being an African-American, she was the first woman to run for the nation’s highest office. Contrary to what a Daily Show presenter, Kristen Schaal, stated in a piece on Thursday March 13, 2008 where she claimed “…it took 232 years to get a woman this close…” referring to Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. That is true, however, no mention was made of Shirley Chisholm’s historic act on January 25, 1972. Despite the fact that she was not alive when Shirley Chisholm ran, the information exists.
Everyone knew she was not going to win and so did she but that was not the point. Shirley Chisholm did it because she could. How great that Shirley Chisholm had no inhibitions to running for president 40 years ago. Shirley Chisholm, I quote from the article, “… told her audience she was out to prove to the public …that other kinds of people can steer the ship of state besides the white men…”
What can hold us back from attempting great things? This is still a new year. Each day is a new day. Who isn’t into New Year’s resolutions except those who have attempted to create them and failed to implement them? Whether you create resolutions or not, it is still planning. You plan to or you plan not to.
I have been working on removing blocks from my subconscious to free the way for me to do anything I want to do this year and beyond. One block was I thought I’d go to Hell if I became rich. I did not test to see if I had a block to becoming a politician because that is not what I want to do.I want to create a comfortable lifestyle for my husband and me, but also do what politicians are supposed to do: be of service.
Even after creating 2011+ goals, this morning at 5 AM, I ask myself, “What do I dare to be?” Darius Barenzedah of You Wealth Revolution recently offered a peek at a course he is offering to align one’s goals with their values. I knew what my values were, or thought I did. I found another after the hacker con incident. I always felt that a mark of adulthood was responsibility, to be able to assist family and friends when they require help. I felt the need to express that when I read the emails, despite the alarms that were raised. The level above that was to be aware and cautious, to refuse when things did not feel right. The realization of false evidence appearing real (FEAR) was a useful revelation and revealed abilities I did have. I did not have to prove anything; I possessed what I thought was missing.
Goals and values align, then one can move into what one wants to have. We realize that what we struggle with and fail to achieve may be something we should not be doing in the first place. There are some things we should not do and understand that it is not a failure. We need to find help. If it is embarrassing to ask for help outside of yourself, go within. We all have energies that assist. Talk to the air around you. Ask. You will be the lead, just like I found this article again when it had been on my mind since I saw “The Daily Show.”I remembered Shirley Chisholm that day but not since Hillary Clinton ran. Now I can say, “If Shirley Chisholm and Hillary Clinton could run for President (not forgetting Geraldine Ferraro’s run for Vice President), I could (fill in the blank).”
This is a direct copy of an article run by the Village Voice newspaper. Jon Stewart on his “The Daily Show” completely missed this information. One of his white female staffers went on about Clinton; she may have mentioned Geraldine Ferraro, however, she was running for Vice President. The point is Shirley Chisholm was never mentioned. Why was that?
Shirley Chisholm Dares to Run for President
By Tony Ortega, Mon., Jan. 17 2011 @ 6:00AM
Categories: Clip Job
Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archives.
December 2, 1971, Vol. XVI, No. 48
December 2, 1971, Vol. XVI, No. 48
‘They will remember a 100-pound woman’
By Mary Breasted
By Mary Breasted
The tiny glittering black woman stood utterly at attention. She wore a suit of stiff brocade that fitted her shoulders so snugly it gave her a faintly military air. There was, in fact, something about her that suggested the Salvation Army. Perhaps it was only her stiff shoulders, or perhaps also her frequent references to the Lord. Then, too, she had a way of drawing herself up even straighter and stiffer in her moments of intensity, looking then totally charged with inspiration, a small quivering ramrod of righteousness.
“I’m here to tell you tonight, yes, I dare to say I’m going to run for the Presidency of the United States of America!” she uttered at the climactic center of her speech.
When she said the word “dare,” she fairly squinted with indignation, and, propelled along now by her own anger, she told her audience she was out to prove to the public “that other kinds of people can steer the ship of state besides the white men…”
“Regardless of the outcome,” she continued, more slowly now for emphasis, “they will have to remember that a little 100-pound woman, Shirley Chisholm, shook things up!”
The small and hyper-tense black Congresswoman from Brooklyn was speaking to some 1300 of her supporters in a ballroom of the Americana Hotel three weeks ago. The occasion was the first fund-raising dinner for her Presidential campaign, and she had drawn to it just about everyone of importance in Brooklyn and Manhattan politics, including John Lindsay. A night of glory for her, the dinner raised some $60,000 and demonstrated her considerable drawing power in this city.
But before another week was out, her still unofficial candidacy would appear to be shaking up Shirley Chisholm every bit as much as it was shaking up the male politicians she so longed to unnerve. For she went at the end of the week to a conference of black elected officials at Washington’s Sheraton-Park Hotel, where she was made to feel only barely welcome. The few female politicians in attendance did react warmly to her, but the black male congressmen, who appeared to be calling all the shots, were almost openly contemptuous of her.
Thursday evening (November 18) a cocktail party for the visiting black politicians was held in a large room in the Rayburn building on Capitol Hill. It was a gathering of black celebrities, who, like their white counterparts at such affairs, basked in the smiles of pretty girls, looked around to see who else of importance was present, and generally gave off that ineffable air of people who have made it and know it. Success seems to break down all philosophical barriers at Washington cocktail parties, and on this evening, at least, success had gathered in the same room black men as disparately oriented as the Nixon and Kennedy officials who showed up at the first Kennedy Center party…
Shirley Chisholm is a mixed bag. She can be calculating and manipulative; she can sacrifice principle to expedience; she can be courageous and moving; she can be hysterical one moment, shapely dazzling rational the next.
She has announced that she will enter the Florida, North Carolina, and California primaries, the least of which makes no sense for a black who wants to contribute delegates to a black caucus at the convention. Whoever wins the California primary takes all the delegates to the convention; thus California blacks would do better to ride on the slate of a strong black candidate.
At this point, Mrs. Chisholm’s candidacy is obviously troublesome to her black colleagues in Congress. And though reporters find her good copy, they can’t understand why she’s running. It may be sheer ego; it may be her tenacious feminism that has motivated her. But this is the reason I overheard her telling a cluster of black women at the conference: “After this is over, I’ve done my thing for America…This is my legacy for the folks. Somebody has to have the guts to show the others we can do it.”
[Each weekday morning, we post an excerpt from another issue of the Voice, going in order from our oldest archives. Visit our Clip Job archive page to see excerpts back to 1956.]
Allison L. Williams Hill is an artist; designer; planner; healer; integrative health coach, and inventor. She shares her work and services through
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