14. During her run for president, three separate assassination attempts were made on Shirley Chisholm. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons “Unbought and unbossed.” Those words ring loudly as a mere speck of Shirley Chisholm’s legacy. Chisholm, born and raised in Brooklyn, became the first black woman elected to Congress in 1968. After four years as the New York representative for the 12th congressional district (primarily the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood), Chisholm announced her run for the presidency. In that moment, she became the first black candidate for president from a major party, and the first female candidate to run for the Democratic Party’s nomination. Chisholm's life was endangered as she vied for our nation's highest office. The representative won a total of 28 delegates during her run. After stepping down from Congress, Chisholm taught at Mount Holyoke and Spelman College, both all-women colleges (Spelman is also a historically black institution). In 2015, she was awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. In 2020, a statue of Chisholm is scheduled to be erected in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. 40
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