122 Quotes by Shirley Chisholm

America has the laws and the material resources it takes to insure justice for all its people. What it lacks is the heart, the humanity ...

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. That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free.

Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.

We have never seen health as a right. It has been conceived as a privilege, available only to those who can afford it. This is the real reason the American health care system is in such a scandalous state.

That's what's wrong with the country. There are too many 'good soldiers' accepting too many bad decisions.

Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power.

I have never cared too much what people way. What I am interested in is what they do.

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.

Racism keeps people who are being managed from finding out the truth through contact with each other.