who was shirley chisholm ?
Shirley Chisholm: Shirley Chisholm, American politician, the first African American woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress. Shirley St. Hill was the daughter of immigrants; her father was from British Guiana (now Guyana) and her mother from Barbados. She grew up in Barbados and in her native Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Brooklyn College (B.A., 1946).