Shirley Chisholm
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50 free Shirley Chisholm trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Shirley Chisholm was the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress, and four years later she became the first Black candidate to seek a major party's nomination for president. She did both with little money and less help from the political establishment, which is a large part of why her story is still told in classrooms every February. This quiz gathers the fun facts behind the famous firsts: where she spent her childhood, what she did before politics, the committee seat she refused to accept quietly, the unlikely allies she worked with, the threats and rivals of her 1972 campaign, and the films, books and honors that have kept her name alive since. It is written for students and kids meeting her for the first time, for teachers who want a ready-made review, and for anyone who enjoys political history. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Elected from inner-city Brooklyn, Shirley Chisholm protested being put on which House committee?
Agriculture
Agriculture made no sense for a city district, she argued, and party leaders moved her to Veterans' Affairs. A Brooklyn rabbi had urged her to use the seat to get surplus food to the hungry.
Q 02Which segregationist rival did Shirley Chisholm visit in the hospital after he was shot in 1972?
George Wallace
George Wallace was her ideological opposite, and the visit angered many of her backers. Years later he helped win Southern votes for one of her minimum-wage bills.
Q 03Which Oscar winner plays Shirley Chisholm in Shirley, the 2024 film about her presidential campaign?
Regina King
Regina King signed on in 2021 with John Ridley writing and directing, and the film arrived three years later.
Q 04Which 2020 presidential candidate's logo echoed the red and yellow of Shirley Chisholm's 1972 run?
Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris chose the colors as a tribute, and she launched her run in January 2019, 47 years after Chisholm announced hers in January 1972.
Q 05Brooklyn-born Shirley Chisholm spent ages five through nine living on which Caribbean island?
Barbados
Barbados gave her a strict British-style schooling that she credited for her ease with words, and an accent she kept for life.
Q 06Shirley Chisholm's husband Conrad, her bodyguard for part of the 1972 campaign, had which job?
Private investigator
Private investigator Conrad Chisholm specialized in negligence lawsuits. He fully backed his wife's run for the White House.
Q 07Shirley Chisholm State Park, opened in Brooklyn in 2019, was built on top of two former what?
Landfills
Landfills that once took nearly 40 percent of the city's trash now lie under the largest state park in New York City.
Q 08In 1972, Shirley Chisholm became the first woman to seek the presidential nomination of which party?
Democratic
Democratic voters gave her about 430,000 primary votes, and she was also the first Black candidate to seek a major party's nomination for president.
Q 09Three threats on Shirley Chisholm's life in 1972 led which federal agency to begin protecting her?
The Secret Service
The Secret Service took over in May 1972, months into her campaign; until then her husband had been her only guard.
Q 10In 2014, Shirley Chisholm became the 37th honoree in the Black Heritage series of what?
Postage stamps
Postage stamps bearing her portrait were issued as Forever stamps, which stay valid for first-class mail whatever the price becomes.
Q 11Which Brooklyn neighborhood formed the heart of the district that sent Shirley Chisholm to Congress?
Bedford-Stuyvesant
Bedford-Stuyvesant anchored a district that a court had ordered redrawn, opening the way for Brooklyn's first Black member of Congress.
Q 12Which language, her minor at Brooklyn College, did Shirley Chisholm use to court voters in 1968?
Spanish
Spanish helped her reach the district's large Puerto Rican population, and she kept using it throughout her time in politics.
Q 13At five, Shirley Chisholm was sent with her sisters to a Caribbean farm run by which relative?
Her grandmother
Q 21Which slogan from Shirley Chisholm's first House race became the title of her 1970 autobiography?
Unbought and Unbossed
Unbought and Unbossed told voters that neither money nor party bosses controlled her. The same words are inscribed on her burial vault.
Q 22Which book did Shirley Chisholm publish in 1973, the year after her run for the White House?
The Good Fight
The Good Fight followed a shoestring campaign that had spent only about $300,000 in total.
Q 23Shirley Chisholm won 152 delegate votes for president at the 1972 convention held in which city?
Miami Beach
Her grandmother, Emaline Seale, raised the girls for about five years while their parents worked and saved in Brooklyn.
Q 14Before politics, Shirley Chisholm spent years directing and supervising what kind of facility?
Day care centers
Day care centers were her specialty: by the early 1960s she oversaw ten of them for New York City and was a recognized authority on early education.
Q 15At which school did Shirley Chisholm earn her master's degree, taking classes at night after work?
Columbia University
Columbia University's Teachers College awarded her the degree while she held a full-time job in Harlem.
Q 16Before going to Washington, Shirley Chisholm won her first election in 1964 to which New York body?
State Assembly
State Assembly work in Albany made her only the second Black woman in the legislature, after her own political club had hesitated to back a female candidate.
Q 17Which Freedom Rides organizer and civil rights leader lost the 1968 House race to Shirley Chisholm?
James Farmer
James Farmer ran with Republican and Liberal backing and argued the district needed a man in Washington; she beat him by about two to one.
Q 18Shirley Chisholm's first speech on the House floor, in 1969, attacked U.S. involvement in what?
The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War drew her vow to vote against every military spending bill until the country's priorities were put right.
Q 19Shirley Chisholm was the only woman among the 13 founders of which Capitol Hill group in 1971?
Congressional Black Caucus
Congressional Black Caucus founders were snubbed by the White House at first, so they boycotted the 1971 State of the Union address.
Q 20Which South Dakota senator beat Shirley Chisholm and others to the 1972 presidential nomination?
George McGovern
George McGovern won 1,728 delegates to her 152, a tally that still placed her fourth on the roll call.
Miami Beach hosted both major parties' conventions that summer, and Ohio's delegation gave her more votes than any other state's.
Q 24Which future Republican presidential nominee worked with Shirley Chisholm to expand food aid?
Bob Dole
Bob Dole, then a new senator from Kansas farm country, became her unlikely partner in widening the program that helps poor families buy groceries.
Q 25Shirley Chisholm played a key role in creating which federal food program for mothers and babies?
WIC
WIC began as a pilot program in 1972 and was operating in 45 states within two years.
Q 26Which famous feminist journalist tried to run as a Shirley Chisholm delegate in New York in 1972?
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan both tried to become Chisholm delegates in New York, and both fell short.
Q 27In 1993, Bill Clinton nominated Shirley Chisholm as U.S. ambassador to which Caribbean nation?
Jamaica
Jamaica never received her: poor health forced her to withdraw before she could take up the post.
Q 28Which president gave Shirley Chisholm a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama presented the medal in 2015, a decade after her death; Congress added its own Gold Medal in 2024.
Q 29Which actress won an Emmy for playing Shirley Chisholm in the 2020 miniseries Mrs. America?
Uzo Aduba
Uzo Aduba had already won two Emmys as Crazy Eyes in Orange Is the New Black before taking the role.
Q 30Which comedian plays Shirley Chisholm in a spoof 1970s sitcom within History of the World, Part II?
Wanda Sykes
Wanda Sykes also co-wrote and produced the Mel Brooks series, whose running sketch retells the 1972 campaign as a sitcom called Shirley!