BROOKLYN, NY, January 31, 2014: Today, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams commemorated the unveiling of the new United States Postal Service’s Forever stamp in honor of Shirley Chisholm, the trailblazing Brooklynite who was the first African-American woman elected to Congress in 1968 and the first woman to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972.
She was born in Bedford-Stuyvesant to immigrant parents and earned her B.A. from Brooklyn College. Her stamp, featuring a painting by artist Robert Shetterly, is the 37th in the Postal Services’ Black Heritage series.
“We’re here to dignify a great woman by showing a display on a stamp…but the question mark that lingers over our lives, will she put a stamp on who and what we are?” said Borough President Adams. “Would her stamp of approval reflect that we’re moving in a direction that she started so many years ago? Shirley would have said, ‘what are we doing for everyday people who are hurting and hurt people?’ We have to not leave the question mark of ‘will she place a stamp of approval on us?” We have to straighten that question mark into an exclamation point…by what we do and not by what we say; by ensuring that our legacy will be as great as Congresswoman Chisholm’s legacy continues to be. ”
A confidante of Chisholm, retired dentist, Dr. Lamuel Stanislaus now in his ’90s said, “The honor to Chisholm is well merited. She was a brilliant educator and politician. She was one of my best friends ever since I got to know her many, many years ago.”
EVERYBODY’S Magazine Publisher Herman Hall is thrilled to say: “As a young immigrant, I met the Congresswoman in 1972 and we remained in contact until a year before she went to the other world. She was extremely proud of her Caribbean heritage and always proud to say she was the child of Barbadian and Guyanese immigrants. The Congresswoman was very helpful to me during the early years of EVERYBODY’S Magazine. Like those who knew her, I am happy that her contributions to this nation is recognized through the issuance of a U.S. postage stamp.”