Fearless Shirley-Black N White Thursday

I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish.

I want history to remember me not just as the first black woman to be elected to Congress, not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and dared to be herself.

Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.

At present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.



Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.

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



Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread and deepseated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.

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.

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



It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.