Shirley Chisholm

The first African-American Congresswoman and first black candidate on a major party’s presidential ticket, Shirley Chisholm was catapulted into the national limelight by virtue of her race, gender, and will to create a more inclusive government. The trailblazing Congresswoman once said, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair” – a phrase that has since served as a mantra and rallying cry for many Americans.

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was born in Brooklyn, NY to immigrant parents in 1924. Her father was a factory worker who came from Guyana and her mother was a seamstress from Barbados. She earned multiple degrees in education from Brooklyn College and Columbia University.

After college, Chisholm became a nursery school teacher and she also earned her master’s degree from Columbia University at the same time. She was ready to fight racial and gender inequality in the U.S. and became a community activist through several organizations. She was a leader in League of Women Voters, National Association for the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP), Urban League, and Democratic Party Club in Brooklyn.

Chisholm became interested in politics after she worked as a consultant on child care policy for the City of New York. She ran for the State Legislature in New York in 1964. After winning that election, she served for four years. In 1968, a lawsuit brought under the Voting Rights Act ordered that New York redraw districts to more fairly represent Chisholm’s majority black and Jewish neighborhood. She ran for the House of Representatives without the support of party leadership, but won her seat anyway.

Her motto and title of her autobiography—Unbossed and Unbought—illustrated her outspoken advocacy for women and minorities during her seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. In Congress, she used her knowledge and background to introduce more than 50 pieces of legislation focused on the needs of women, children, immigrants, those with low income, and people of color. She was a co-founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971. After gaining influence in the House, she became the first black woman to serve on the powerful Rules Committee.

Chisholm then announced her bid to become President of the United States, calling her campaign the “Chisholm Trail.” However, discrimination followed Chisholm’s quest for the 1972 Democratic Party presidential nomination. Chisholm survived several assassination attempts during her campaign and refused to be intimidated into dropping out of the race. She was blocked from participating in televised primary debates, and after taking legal action, was permitted to make just one speech. She also suffered from an under-financed campaign and lack of support from the predominantly male Congressional Black Caucus. At the 1972 Democratic National Convention, she lost the bid for the presidency to Senator McGovern.

After leaving Congress in January 1983, Chisholm helped cofound the National Political Congress of Black Women and campaigned for Jesse Jackson’s presidential bids in 1984 and 1988. She also taught at Mt. Holyoke College in 1983. Though nominated as U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica by President Bill Clinton, Chisholm declined due to ill health. She died on January 1, 2005. Of her legacy, Chisholm said, “I want to be remembered as a woman … who dared to be a catalyst of change.”

Ayanna Pressley

Ayanna Pressley shattered barriers in Massachusetts politics, bringing her identity and experiences to the center of her service to her community. As the first black woman to represent Massachusetts in the House of Representatives and on the Boston City Council, she has dedicated herself to bringing community perspectives into local government.

Born in Chicago in 1974, Ayanna grew up the child of a single mother and experienced abuse as a child. Her father battled drug addiction and was incarcerated during most of her childhood. While she describes her neighborhood as “tough,” she also points to its supportive aspects, saying, “I also learned that my neighborhood could be a nurturing, positive place to grow up. We make a mistake when we stereotype neighborhoods as ‘bad,’ and not worth our attention or investment.” Pressley learned how to speak publicly through her grandfather’s Baptist Church. She embedded herself in politics early in her life, volunteering for her first political campaign at age ten for Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington.

Pressley later moved to Boston to attend Boston University, but left school to work full-time to support her family. After college, she stayed in Boston, embedding herself in local politics. Pressley worked for Rep. Joe Kennedy II and Sen. John Kerry, focusing on constituent services. After learning enough experience, Pressley stepped down from Kerry’s office and ran for Boston City Council. After winning her seat, she became the first black woman to serve on the Council in 2009. While in that role, she created the Committee on Healthy Women, Families, and Communities to advocate for women and families, people of color, and those with low income.

After a decade of experience in the Boston City Council, Pressley launched her campaign for the House of Representatives in 2018. She brought her life experiences and identity to the center of her campaign. Pressley often referred to the idea that constituents are better served when their representatives have shared their experiences, saying “I fundamentally believe that the people closest to the pain should be closest to the power, driving and informing our policymaking.” In a tight race, Pressley won her seat in the House of Representatives, defeating a ten-term incumbent.

Now serving in Congress, she is on the Committee on Financial Services, including a subcommittee that addresses diversity and inclusion in financial reform. She also serves on the Committee on Oversight and Reform, where she is working to guide policy on civil rights and economic reform.

When asked about her legacy, Pressley looks toward her impact on the community. “I don’t think anyone who has made history set out to make history. I’d like to think that my election made it easier for the women who came behind me.”

César Chávez

César Chávez was a labor leader and civil rights activist. He is known for his nonviolent activism that organized and advocated for farm workers and Mexican Americans.

César Chávez was born on March 31, 1927. His parents ran a farm and owned multiple businesses in Arizona’s North Gila Valley, near the California-Mexico border. In 1938, the family was evicted from the land they had worked for nearly 50 years. This pushed his family to become migrant farm workers, moving around California to work other people’s land. During the harvest season, the whole family had to pitch in to pay for basic necessities, like food and shelter.

Due to the constant migration, Chávez attended more than 36 schools before dropping out after eighth grade. Segregation of Mexican Americans in schools was then an accepted practice in California, and he chafed at the open prejudice. Lying about his age, Chávez joined the U.S. Navy in 1944 and served two years. Chávez then worked as a ranch hand before landing a job with a lumber company.

Encouraged by Fred Ross, a well-known community organizer, Chávez quit the lumber yard to become a full-time organizer for the Community Services Organization (CSO), setting up chapters across the state. Named executive director in 1959, Chávez moved to Los Angeles to work in the organization’s front office. But two years later, in 1962, he moved to Delano, California, to work alongside Dolores Huerta, a CSO colleague. There they established the National Farm Workers Association (later known as the United Farm Workers union). With this organization, they lobbied for a minimum wage and unemployment insurance for farm workers, advocated for farm workers’ right to collective bargaining, and established a life insurance plan, credit union, and hiring hall for members. Chavez’s work improved pay and working conditions for countless laborers in California.

Chavez’s slogan, “Si, se puede” (Spanish for “Yes, we can”), lives on as a rallying cry for Latinx civil rights. Chávez died in April 1993 in Yuma, Arizona. In 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded Chavez a posthumous Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

Deb Haaland

Haaland earned her place as one of the first Native American women to become a member of the House of Representatives in 2019 and recently became the first Native American woman to preside over the House. She has become a national example of how diversity in representation allows for all communities to have their interests heard by the government.

As the child of two military parents, Haaland moved throughout her childhood. She still maintained a deep connection to New Mexico as a member of the Laguna Pueblo and as a 35th generation New Mexican. She graduated high school in Albuquerque, NM, and later earned an undergraduate degree from the University of New Mexico in 1994.

Haaland became a small business owner after college, selling salsas and antiques. During this time, she and her family struggled financially. As a single parent, she faced difficulties obtaining healthcare and relied on SNAP benefits to survive. This helped pique her interest in equity and activism, leading her to re-enroll in school. Haaland earned her JD in 2006 and intended to become a practicing lawyer. Unfortunately, she failed the bar exam by 5 points and did not earn her license. Instead of studying and taking the exam a second time, she used her law background as a foundation for her political career.

As a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, and she focuses on raising Native American voices and issues. In 2005, she worked to gather support for a bill in the NM state legislature to allow members of New Mexico Indian tribes in-state tuition at higher education institutions. With the blessing of Pueblo leaders, Haaland set up voter registration drives at cultural events, such as Navajo Nation fairs and parades.

Citing her indigenous roots, Haaland has taken a focus on environmental causes and climate change. She protested against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock in solidarity with other Native tribes and helped to bring this issue to the national stage. “We have to raise [Native American issues] up so that people know that those are things they should care about, just like Black Lives Matter and all of the discrimination and targeting that happens every single day in this country.” When speaking about her responsibility to Native American communities, she resists the idea that she is their voice, but says that she is a facilitator to helping them be heard. Haaland advocates for making room for tribal leaders in national decision making.

Three months into her first term as a Congresswoman, Haaland has advocated for missing and murdered indigenous women, renewable energy, raising the minimum wage, and shifting funds from prisons to schools.

Daniel Inouye

Daniel Inouye served for a combined 53 years in the House and Senate for the state of Hawaii, becoming the first Senator of Japanese descent. A proud war veteran and energetic legislator, Inouye embraced Members of Congress from across the aisle and won admiration from all parties for his unwavering integrity.

Inouye was born on September 7, 1924, in Honolulu, Hawaii. At age 17, Inouye worked for the Red Cross to train to become a surgeon. When he turned 18, Inouye tried to enlist in the military, but was denied entry because of his race. “Here I was, though I was a citizen of the United States, I was declared to be an enemy alien and as a result not fit to put on the uniform of the United States,” Inouye recalled. After petitioning the government to reverse its decision, Inouye volunteered again and joined the Army as a private, entering the fabled 442nd Regimental Combat Team. While serving the military, Inouye lost his right arm, but later earned the Medal of Honor.

After Hawaii achieved statehood in 1959, Inouye was elected its first Congressman. He continuously represented Hawaii for 53 years, both as a Representative and a Senator. He was the first Japanese American elected to both the House and Senate. Because of his reputation for bipartisanship and ethical courage, Inouye was called to serve as the first Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Member of the Senate Watergate committee, and Chair of the Iran-Contra Investigative Committee.

Throughout his career, Inouye championed the interests of Hawaii’s people and worked to strengthen Hawaii’s infrastructure, diversify its economy, and protect its natural resources. He advocated for the rights of Native Hawaiians, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and sought equal justice for Japanese Americans and Filipino World War II veterans.

His advocacy for minority rights extended to the inner workings of government. In his first speech, he supported the use of filibusters, a custom which allows a minority voice to be heard in the Senate. In this speech, he said, “I am a member of a minority, in a sense few other Senators have ever been. I understand the hopelessness that a man of unusual color or feature experiences in the face of constant human injustice. I understand the despair of a human heart crying for comfort to a world it cannot become a part of, and to a family of man that has disinherited him. For this reason, I have done and will continue to do all that one man can do to secure for these people the opportunity and the justice that they do not now have.”

Inouye died on December 17, 2012. When the Senate met on December 18, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont stood and gestured to Inouye’s empty desk, noting, “Today is the first day since Hawaii became a state that it is not represented by Dan Inouye.” Congress made arrangements to allow Inouye to lay in State, beneath the Capitol Rotunda, an honor granted only to the nation’s most prominent government officials.

On November 20, 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Inouye the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “[Senator Inouye] taught all of us that no matter what you look like or where you come from,” Obama observed, “this country has a place for everybody who’s willing to serve and work hard.”

Jim Langevin

James “Jim” Langevin is a current U.S. Congressman from Rhode Island who draws on his experience with disability to increase the quality of life for all Americans. Jim Langevin was born in 1964 in Providence, Rhode Island. He was active in his community from a young age and participated in the Boy Scouts. At age 16, Langevin attended a program with the Warwick Police Department. A police officer’s gun accidentally discharged and struck him, leaving him paralyzed. While he had originally wanted to pursue a career in law enforcement, this incident pulled him into other types of public service.

Langevin went on to attend Rhode Island College and later receive Masters of Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. After earning his degrees, Langevin pursued a career in government. He was first elected to the state’s constitutional convention, using the ironic slogan, “I’ll stand up for you” to refer to his policy and his disability. Langevin was elected a member of the Rhode Island General Assembly in 1988 and served as a state representative until 1994. He was then elected as Secretary of State of Rhode Island in 1994. While Secretary of State, he earned a reputation for weeding out corruption in state government.

Langevin brings his experiences with disability to help guide public policy. He has increased independence and inclusion for people with disabilities through legislation, such as the ADA Amendments Act. He is also an advocate for stem cell research and universal healthcare, arguing that these are instrumental for increasing the quality of life for people with disabilities. He also drew from his accident to address gun control, where he proposed an extension to the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 and most recently introducing the Bipartisan Background Check Act of 2019.

In 2010, Langevin became the first member of Congress to preside over the House of Representatives while using a wheelchair after the House had recently installed a wheelchair lift to the Speaker’s rostrum. He also became the first quadriplegic to be appointed as the speaker pro tempore in the 116th Congress. While Langevin’s legacy surpasses his disability, it has been instrumental in his experience and progress as a legislator.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, GA, Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American Baptist minister and civil rights activist. During the less than 13 years of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of the modern American Civil Rights Movement, he helped African Americans achieve more progress toward racial equality than the previous 350 years had produced. Dr. King is widely regarded as America’s most widely known advocate for nonviolent activism. Drawing inspiration from both his Christian faith and the peaceful teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King led a nonviolent movement in the late 1950’s and ‘60s to achieve legal equality for African-Americans in the United States. While others were advocating for freedom by “any means necessary,” Dr. King used the power of words and acts of nonviolent resistance, such as protests, grassroots organizing, and civil disobedience to achieve civil rights goals.

In 1955, he was recruited to serve as spokesman for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was a campaign by the African-American population of Montgomery, Alabama to force integration of the city’s bus lines. In 1957, Dr. King was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an organization designed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. In 1963, he led a coalition of numerous civil rights groups in a nonviolent campaign aimed at Birmingham, Alabama, which at the time was the “most segregated city in America.” Later in 1963, Dr. King was one of the driving forces behind the March for Jobs and Freedom, more commonly known as the “March on Washington.” It was at this march that Dr. King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

After that speech, King’s work was impossible to ignore. In 1964, at 35 years old, Martin Luther King, Jr. became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. King’s work started to directly impact national legislation. Dr. King’s March on Washington pushed Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and the Selma to Montgomery March for Voting Rights led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Between 1965 and 1968, Dr. King shifted his focus toward economic justice and international peace. His work in these years culminated in the “Poor People’s Campaign,” which was a broad effort to assemble a multiracial coalition of impoverished Americans who would advocate for economic change. During this time, J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI designated King as a radical, subjecting him to investigation and harassment from the COINTELPRO program.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s nonviolent leadership ended abruptly and tragically on April 4th, 1968, when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. His untimely death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Dr. King’s body was returned to his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. His accomplishments are now taught to American children of all races, and his teachings are studied by scholars and students worldwide. He is memorialized in hundreds of statues, parks, and other public facilities around the world as a leader whose teachings are irrevocably tied to the progress of civil rights.

Mary McLeod Bethune

The daughter of former slaves, Mary Jane McLeod Bethune was one of the most important black educators, civil rights leaders, and government officials of the twentieth century. She founded a college that set educational standards for today’s black universities, and her role as Head of the Office of Negro Affairs in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s cabinet gave people of color a voice in government.

Bethune was born in 1875 near Maysville, South Carolina. After being released from slavery at the end of the Civil War, her mother worked for her former owner until she could buy land to grow cotton. Her mother also worked small jobs for white families in the area. Bethune was often allowed to go into white children’s nurseries while going on errands with her mother. One day, she picked up a book in a nursery and as she opened it, a white child took it away from her, saying she didn’t know how to read. At the time, Bethune thought that the only difference between white and African American people was the ability to read and write.

After being inspired to learn from the incident, Bethune was determined to benefit from efforts to educate African Americans. She graduated in 1894 from the Scotia Seminary, a boarding school in North Carolina. Bethune next attended Dwight Moody’s Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in Chicago, Illinois. But with no church willing to sponsor her as a missionary, Bethune became an educator.

Bethune later moved to Florida, where she opened a boarding school, the Daytona Beach Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls in 1904. Bethune’s school later became a college, merging with the all-male Cookman Institute to form Bethune-Cookman College in 1929. It was one of the few institutions below the Mason-Dixon Line where African Americans could achieve a higher education.

A champion of racial and gender equality, Bethune founded many organizations and led voter registration drives after women gained the vote in 1920. In 1924, she was elected president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, and in 1935, she became the founding president of the National Council of Negro Women. In 1936, Bethune became the highest-ranking African American woman in government when President Franklin Roosevelt named her director of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration, where she remained until 1944.

She was also a leader of FDR’s unofficial “black cabinet.” In 1937, Bethune organized a conference on the Problems of the Negro and Negro Youth and fought to end discrimination and lynching. In 1940, she became vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP), a position she held for the rest of her life. In 1942, Bethune worked as an advisor to ensure the Women’s Army Corps was racially integrated. Appointed by President Harry Truman, Bethune was the only woman of color at the founding conference of the United Nations in 1945.

Bethune died on May 18, 1955. Bethune’s life was celebrated with a memorial statue in Washington, DC in 1974, and a postage stamp in 1985. Her final residence is a National Historic Site.

Raffi Freedman-Gurspan

Raffi Freedman-Gurspan was the first openly transgender staffer to work in the White House as the primary liaison to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. She is now the Director of External Relations at the National Center for Transgender Equality and is a trans-rights activist in Massachusetts who connects LGBT issues to racial and economic justice.

Freedman-Gurspan was adopted from Honduras by Jewish parents and grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts. She self-identifies as an indigenous Central American, a Latina, and as Jewish. At 14, she was a gay rights activist, protesting harmful budget cuts outside of the Massachusetts State House. “Equal treatment and justice for those that are vulnerable in society was always just at the forefront of my childhood, and made me decide early on that I wanted to be involved in social justice work,” she says.

Freedman-Gurspan received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Norwegian from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota in 2009. She took classes in international law with a focus on human rights and gender equality. “When I moved back to Boston after graduation, I quickly realized that Massachusetts had no state civil rights protections for people like me.”

As an adult, Freedman-Gurspan worked for the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition while it was trying to convince lawmakers to pass a nondiscrimination law protecting transgender residents. From there, she worked for State Rep. Carl Sciortino as his legislative director, becoming the first openly transgender person to hold that position in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

She was both a Senior Associate Director for Public Engagement, where she served as the primary liaison to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, and an Outreach and Recruitment Director for Presidential Personnel at the White House from 2015-2017. Raffi was the first openly transgender staffer to work at the White House. She also currently sits on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council as an appointee named by President Barack Obama.

Raffi has worked in non-profit and government sectors for nearly a decade. Her career includes prior employment at NCTE as Policy Advisor for the Racial and Economic Justice Initiative, Legislative Director in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, LGBT Liaison for the City of Somerville, Massachusetts, worked with the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, and assisted in gender studies course and research work at Boston University.