Women’s Studies Program at Brooklyn College Celebrates Its Thirtieth Year
and Names Center after Shirley Chisholm, ’46

Shirley Chisholm, '46

The Women’s Studies program at Brooklyn College, one of the first women’s studies programs in the nation and the first at the City University of New York, will mark its thirtieth anniversary on Thursday, September 23 with a luncheon in the Gold Room of the Student Center, located on Campus Road at East 27 Street. As part of its celebration, the Women’s Studies program will dedicate its new Center for the Study of Women, to be named for Shirley Chisholm, ’46, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1968 to 1982. Founding members of the Women’s Studies program, Women’s Studies graduates, and current Women’s Studies faculty and students will celebrate the program’s achievements and look to the expansion of its activities.

Women’s Studies began as a grassroots collaboration of faculty, students and college staff caught up in the transformative early years of the Women’s Movement. Throughout its history, Women’s Studies, a degree-granting program, has played a major role in the ongoing academic and intellectual discourse on gender, women and society, as it enlarged academic opportunities in graduate scholarship and professional careers.

Also honoring Brooklyn College Women’s Studies and its Shirley Chisholm Center for the Study of Women will be Shola Lynch, filmmaker and creator of a documentary of Chisholm’s life, Unbought and Unbossed; Professor Barbara Ransby, associate professor, Department of African American Studies at University of Illinois at Chicago, political activist, author of the widely acclaimed biography Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement; and Julie Gallagher, assistant professor of history at Antioch College who is writing a book on the political activism of black women in New York City in the years 1944 to 1972.

“Shirley Chisholm’s life and political contribution represent everything that is positive about our Women’s Studies program, Brooklyn College and the borough of Brooklyn,” said Barbara Winslow, professor in the School of Education and the coordinator of the Women’s Studies program. “She is the embodiment of the hopes of so many of our students – even today.”

Chisholm, daughter of immigrants, majored in sociology at the College and became active when she encountered racial discrimination. When African American students were denied admittance to a social club, Chisholm organized clubs for black students. She was a member of the debating society; an experience she later said influenced her ‘cut and thrust’ rhetorical style. In 1968 she was the first African American woman elected to Congress, representing Brooklyn’s twelfth congressional district. An ardent feminist, Chisholm was a cofounder of the National Women’s Political Caucus, and once remarked “Women in this country must become revolutionaries. We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and stereotypes.”

Chisholm’s legacy has served Brooklyn College as well as the borough of Brooklyn. As a New York State assemblyperson from 1964 to 1968 she coauthored legislation that instituted SEEK (Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge) an educational program that provided funding to disadvantaged youth. As a Congressperson, she successfully introduced a bill that secured unemployment insurance for domestics and day-care providers, and campaigned for a higher minimum wage and federal funding for day-care facilities.

Chisholm became the first woman and African American from a major political party to campaign for the presidency in 1972. Although she did not win the nomination, she received 151 delegate votes. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives until 1982.

For more information on the luncheon celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Women’s Studies program at Brooklyn College, please contact Professor Barbara Winslow, (718) 951-4807.