Former Congresswoman Chisholm Dies at 80

Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and an outspoken advocate for women and minorities during seven terms in the House, died Saturday near Daytona Beach, Fla., friends said. She was 80.

“She was our Moses that opened the Red Sea for us,” Robert E. Williams, president of the NAACP in Flagler County, Fla., told Associated Press late Sunday. He did not have the details of her death.

Chisholm was first elected to the House in 1968, the same year Richard Nixon won the White House. Four years later, she ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, saying she was running to “represent all Americans.” The nomination went to Sen. George McGovern.

Chisholm, a Brooklyn native known for her powerful speaking style, represented New York in Congress until two years into President Reagan’s tenure.

“Anyone that came in contact with her, they had a feeling of a careness, and they felt that she was very much a part of each individual as she represented her district,” said William Howard, her longtime campaign treasurer.

After leaving Congress, Chisholm was named to the Purington Chair at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., where she taught for four years. In later years, she was a sought-after speaker on the lecture circuit. “She was a tremendous leader and a voice in politics when she was in office, as well as when she left office,” Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields told Associated Press.

Chisholm was married twice. Her 1949 marriage to Conrad Chisholm ended in divorce in February 1977. Later that year she married Arthur Hardwick Jr. She had no children.

Once discussing what her legacy might be, she said, “I’d like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts. That’s how I’d like to be remembered.”

A full obituary will appear in Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times.