Film Pick of the Week: Shirley - review by Yvette Huddleston

Chisholm was an extraordinary woman who during her lifetime achieved many significant things, and is not as well-known as she should be, so a filmic celebration of her life and career is long overdue.

The film opens in 1968 when Chisholm became the first Black woman to be elected to the US Congress. Prior to that moment, an onscreen note tells us, of the 435 members of the House of Representatives, only 11 were women, only five were Black and there were no Black women. As Chisholm stands on the steps of the Capitol building with all the other newly elected members for the taking of an official photograph, she is surrounded by mostly white middle-aged men. It is a starkly striking image that represents the kind of struggle she is facing.

Later she is taunted by a smug Congressman who can’t believe she is in the building and earning the same as he is and makes a point of telling her this every time their paths cross. A seasoned feminist and civil rights campaigner, she refuses to be ruffled by this and puts him firmly in his place. Neither is she content with the committee she has been assigned to – agriculture. She rightly challenges this, it doesn’t make sense, she argues, for her as an inner-city New York politician, or for the people she represents in Brooklyn. And she forcefully communicates this to the speaker of the House.

Written and directed by John Ridley, the film follows Chisholm’s campaign to become the first female black president. She gets a supportive team around her, including veteran civil rights activists Stanley Townsend (Brian Stokes Mitchell) and Wesley McDonald ‘Mac’ Holder (Lance Reddick) and young lawyer Robert Gottlieb (Lucas Hedges). Chisholm is formidable, driven, ambitious, knows her own mind and is admirably unwilling to compromise. The latter quality in particular sometimes causes tension within her team of supporters. As Mac says to her after one especially fraught discussion: “how can I be your adviser if you don’t listen to my advice?”

Sadly, ultimately, Chisholm was unable to secure the Democratic nomination, although she undoubtedly inspired other Black women (and men) to try. Had she been successful, how different US politics might look today…