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Democratic Representative Shirley Chisholm speaks at a U.S. military base during a tour exploring racism in the armed forces. Chisholm was elected to Congress in 1968 and was the first African-American woman ever to serve as a U.S. Representative. (Photo: Leif Skoogfors/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
The first Black woman to serve in Congress is being honored with her own monument.
New York City officials have weighed in on the efforts of the She Built NYC initiative to build more monuments honoring the women of New York City by approving the construction of a monument dedicated to the late Shirley Chisholm.
According to a statement, the Chisholm monument will mark a historic first as Brooklyn has never built permanent public artwork in honor of a woman. The 32-foot-tall memorial presents a rising Chisholm from the waist up, designed with green, stenciled metal trimmed in gold. The structure of the dome of the U.S. Capitol building extends from the congresswoman detailed with gold.
“The composite profile symbolizes how she disrupted the perception of who has the right to occupy such institutions and to be an embodiment for democracy,” monument artists Amanda Williams and Olalekan B. Jeyifous wrote in a proposal brief.
Chisholm is a native of the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, where the monument will stand at Prospect Park’s southeast entrance.
The eldest daughter of Barbados and Guyana immigrants, Chisholm sought to excel in her education. She graduated from Brooklyn College in 1946 and earned her master’s degree from Columbia University in 1951 before becoming a member of Congress in 1968.
Source: Black Enterprise
