A new film about late New York Rep. Shirley Chisholm zeroes in on her 1972 Democratic presidential run, which was famously the first by a Black woman for any major political party.
But at an advance screening of “Shirley” at BAM Rose Cinemas, a chief guardian of Chisholm's historical legacy argued that her greater significance is “not for being a first, but for someone who just sparked a fire,” and that she is as relevant to the present political moment as she was a half-century ago.
“This film, I hope, allows you to be energized, to be motivated, to be inspired by Chisholm’s legacy,” said Zinga Fraser, director of the Shirley Chisholm Project of Brooklyn Women’s Activism at Brooklyn College. “She only wanted to be known as a catalyst for change.”
"Shirley" follows in the footsteps of “Selma,” “Judas and the Black Messiah” and last year’s “Rustin” as the latest movie about a pivotal African American historical figure. But unlike those others, “Shirley,” which will begin streaming on Netflix on Friday after a brief theatrical run, is the relatively rare film to center a Black woman.
"Shirley" was directed by John Ridley, who won the Academy Award for writing “12 Years a Slave.” It was also brought to the screen by two Black women: actress Regina King, who won an Academy Award for her role in “If Beale Street Could Talk” and plays Chisholm; and her sister Reina King, the movie’s producer, who plays Chisholm’s sister, Muriel. The King sisters have said for years that they wanted to bring Chisholm’s story to a wider audience.
A failed presidential run
The movie doesn’t recount Chisholm’s childhood, her years in Barbados or her political rise in Brooklyn. It instead focuses on the excitement and shortcomings of Chisholm’s presidential run.
“I’m paving the road for other people looking like me to get elected,” she says in the film, which also captures the tensions that arise as Chisholm’s supporters struggle to raise funds and increase her visibility.
Shirley Chisolm speaks onstage at the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami.
“This isn’t a campaign,” said her campaign manager Stanley Townsend, who is played by Brian Stokes Mitchell. “It’s a joke! The only thing anybody’s gonna remember is that there were a bunch of Black folks who made fools of themselves.”
The Democratic nomination would ultimately be secured by Sen. George McGovern, whom incumbent Republican Richard Nixon would later defeat in a landslide during the 1972 general election.
Chisholm is portrayed as determined and at times, from the perspective of her aides, obstinate to the point of being infuriating. After Alabama Gov. George Wallace — a staunch segregationist — barely survives an assassination attempt, Chisholm rejects the advice of her aides and goes to his bedside.
In the movie, Chisholm is all too conscious of her candidacy's symbolism.
“The people of America are watching us,” she said.
The film has garnered mixed reviews. The Hollywood Reporter called it a “solid political bio that only sometimes matches its subject’s passion.” In a review for the New York Times, Devika Girish wrote that, “King is magnetic onscreen, nailing Chisholm’s accent and her steely persona. But there is little for her to do other than trade quips with the other characters, in a drama that is too content with telling rather than showing.”
Brooklyn to Barbados and back
The film leaves out much of Chisholm’s important backstory, which may be a familiar journey for New Yorkers of a certain age.
Chisholm was born in 1924 as Shirley Anita St. Hill in Brooklyn, but writes in her 1970 memoir “Unbought and Unbossed” that she was taken to Barbados at an early age to live with her grandmother. She returned to Brooklyn when she was 10 and lived with her parents and siblings in an "unheated, four-room, cold-water railroad flat" in Brownsville, which was a mostly-Jewish neighborhood at the time.
Rep. Shirley Chisholm, Democrat from New York, in 1970.
She graduated from Brooklyn College and got her master’s degree in early childhood education from Columbia University in 1951 before eventually joining the League of Women Voters and the NAACP. In 1964, she became the second African American in the New York State Legislature and in 1968 she won a seat in Congress.
A New York Times article from 1970 refers to her as “the frail‐looking, 100 pound educator from Brooklyn's 12th Congressional District” who had “consistently spoken out against the things she believes wrong and staunchly supported the causes she believes to be in the best interest of her urban, mostly poor Black constituents.” That same year she helped raise funds for Joan Bird, a Black Panther who was charged with attempted murder and eventually acquitted.
Chisholm’s early years in Barbados are merely hinted at in the onscreen portrayal by King. Regina King called mastering Chisholm's fluctuating dialect – which shifted from Bajan to Brooklyn to something more scholarly – “terrifying.”
Clearing a path to the future
Chisholm died in 2005 but her supporters argue that her convictions stand true and that she remains a model for anyone looking to effect change today.
Writing in 1970, Chisholm argued that, “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.”
Speaking on WNYC’s "Brian Lehrer Show" in February, Fraser said Chisholm’s 1972 run was significant because it excited people “who were not necessarily involved in politics, but got involved in politics because Chisholm redefined what presidential elections should look like and who had the capability and should be able to run.”
“She's saying, ‘This is not the domain of just white men,’” said Fraser. “‘We need to create a way in which we see ourselves at the highest levels in this country.’”
