As a rule, it's probably not the best thing to begin a political speech by defining yourself by what you're not. But that's just what Brooklyn Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm did 43 years ago today when she announced she was running for the Presidency on the Democratic line. She said she was not the candidate of black America, "although black and proud," and not the candidate of the women's movement, "although a woman and equally proud." But there was no denying the obviousness of this historic moment. Shirley Chisholm was indeed the nation's first African-American Congresswoman and the first African-American from a major political party to run for the presidency.

The announcement location could also be characterized by what it was not. It was not in a smoky political back room, nor from the podium of a glitzy hotel ballroom, but from the stage of a parochial school auditorium in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Still, it was totally in character with the outspoken former teacher who was idealistic and well ahead of her time as she sought "to repudiate the ridiculous notion that the American people will not vote for a qualified candidate simply because he is not white or because she is not a male."

Shirley Chisholm was born Anita St. Hill on November 20, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the oldest of four daughters of a factory laborer from Guyana and a seamstress from Barbados. For part of her childhood, she lived in Barbados on her maternal grandparents' farm, receiving a British education. Later she attended public schools in Brooklyn and went to Brooklyn College on a scholarship, graduating cum laude with a B.A. in sociology in 1946. From 1946 to 1953, Chisholm worked as a nursery school teacher and then as the director of two daycare centers. She married Conrad Q. Chisholm, a private investigator, in 1949. Three years later she earned an M.A. in early childhood education from Columbia University. Chisholm served as an educational consultant for New York City's Division of Day Care from 1959 to 1964. In 1964, she was elected to the New York state legislature and was the second African–American woman to serve in Albany. She was first elected to Congress in 1968.

For more on Chisholm's career and legacy see: CHISHOLM.

Shirley Chisholm 1972 campaign poster.

(Library of Congress)