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, 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, told The Associated Press
late Sunday. He did not have the details of her death. Chisholm, who
was raised in a predominantly black New York City neighborhood and was
elected to the U.S. House in 1968, was a riveting speaker who often
criticized Congress as being too clubby and unresponsive. "My greatest
political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out
of which come all kinds of things one shouldn't always discuss for
reasons of political expediency," she told voters. She went to Congress
the same year Richard Nixon was elected to the White House and served
until two years into Ronald Reagan tenure as president. "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," William Howard, her longtime campaign
treasurer, said Sunday. [more] and [more] and [more]
Caribbean-Americans React To Passing Of Shirley Chisholm [more]
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