Tayari Jones

Ready or Not: Shirley Chisholm For President, an art exhibition in Brooklyn, is vibrant and real, gorgeous and provocative at the same time. I have had an interest in Shirley Chisholm all my life because as a kid, I was told that we shared a birthday. This was a great source of confidence for me as a little black girl growing up in Atlanta during the 1970s. In addition of being made aware of the work of half a dozen brilliant visual artists, I got a much needed refresher course on the feminist trail blazer, anti-racist activist, and advocate for the poor—Rep. Shirley Anita Chisholm. She represents change I can believe in. American has a bad case of cultural amnesia. All during the primaries, we heard Obama and Clinton being described as “firsts.” Well, Shirley Chisholm, both black and female, beat them both to the punch. Without “Unbought and Unbossed” there would be no “Yes We Can.”