Shirley Chisholm citations

“Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time.”

“The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers — a great pity, on both counts.”

“When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.”

“In the end anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.”

“You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.”

“If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”

“Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread, and deep-seated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.”

“I don't measure America by its achievement but by its potential.”

“The difference between de jure and de facto segregation is the difference between open, forthright bigotry and the shamefaced kind that works through unwritten agreements between real estate dealers, school officials, and local politicians.”

“I was well on the way to forming my present attitude toward politics as it is practiced in the United States; it is a beautiful fraud that has been imposed on the people for years, whose practitioners exchange gelded promises for the most valuable thing their victims own: their votes. And who benefits the most? The lawyers.”

“Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.”