Race, Gender And Politics: Is The United States Ready For A Black Woman President?

(MENAFN– The Conversation) Shirley Chisholm , a Democratic congresswoman, was the first African American woman to run for president of the United States. Sixty years later, Kamala Harris will become the first Black and South Asian American woman to be nominated for president by a major party. Is the United States poised to elect her? In this March 1969 photo, Rep. Shirley Chisholm, a New York Democrat, poses on the steps of the Capitol in Washington with material she plans to use in a speech before the House of Representatives. (AP Photo/Charles Gorry) Chisholm, from Brooklyn, N.Y., first ran for office in 1964 – the year both Harris and I were born (the vice president on Oct. 20 and me on Oct. 30). When Chisholm began her presidential campaign in 1972, Harris and I were probably more focused on our toys and our friends, but I was fascinated by politics and aware of Congresswoman Chisholm. For Black women of my generation, Black women political leaders were few and far between in the 1960s and ’70s, and the numbers remain below our percentage of the population. Black women represent 7.7 per cent of the total U.S. population , according to the...