Importance of Being Chisholm

Nearly 30 years ago I embarked on my college career by choosing a major in history, taking an experimental freshman course in the biographies of 20th century world political leaders.

Women were not ignored: We studied Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Madame Chiang Kai-shek. If nothing else I learned that, at least outside the United States, women could hold and exercise vast political power. But there was little about these leaders being women that mattered, at least in the way that we approached them. I struggled in the course, finding it hard to connect with the subjects, and seriously questioned my choice of major.

For our final assignment we were to choose a biography of a political leader and write a report. I scanned the shelves at the library, and amid all the volumes focusing on men, one book jumped out: a study of U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm of New York. Perusing the book, I felt an odd connection to her, certainly more so than to Meir, Gandhi or Chiang. Here was a leader with far more immediate relevance to me than any other we’d studied.

I devoured the book over the weekend, paying little heed to the professor’s warning that all biographies had to be preapproved. My enthusiasm for studying Chisholm only grew. This was a woman leader who was quite aware of the ways in which being female, and black, mattered.

I bounded into the professor’s office first thing Monday, ready to get the imprimatur needed to continue the assignment. Certainly, he had to approve. After all, Chisholm was the first African American to seek a presidential bid from a major party. But he quickly let the air out of my tires. Chisholm, he sonorously intoned, simply was not important enough.

I suppose that the best way to describe what happened next is that I got even. I did what the professor commanded me to do: chose another book. I grabbed a psycho-biography of Richard Nixon, written before Watergate. The unconventionality of that study, especially when viewed in the hindsight of the scandal, I was sure, would make the professor squirm, yet he could hardly declare the subject of little importance.

Long-term, I resolved that I was going to show that professor I could be a historian too. I soon became drawn to African American history -- the most exciting development in the profession at the time. Later, as I pursued a graduate degree in legal history, I gravitated toward the now-hot field of women’s history.

Meanwhile, I never forgot Shirley Chisholm, who died Saturday. She may not have been important to a middle-aged, white male professor but to me she embodied the battle. “Men are men,” as Chisholm once said. But we women, we’ll be there in the end. Sometimes not being important is just important enough.