From this year, the life of Shirley Chisholm will be celebrated in Barbados in an appropriate way.
This was disclosed yesterday by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, as she addressed the renaming ceremony that saw Vauxhall Primary School named in honour of Shirley Anita Chisholm, the first black woman to be elected to the United States Congress in 1968. She was a product of that primary school in the 1920s, after being sent to live with her grandmother in Barbados.
Addressing a gathering that included United States Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Linda Taglialatela; the Senior Advisor to the Director-General of the International Labour Organization, Chad Blackman, and family of Shirley Chisholm, Prime Minister Mottley said it was no accident that our country’s Independence/Republic Day, November 30, is the birth date of Shirley Chisholm.
“It’s an amazing coincidence,” she remarked, noting that 2024 would mark Chisholm’s 100th birthday. Ms. Mottley continued: “We want to mark one year of celebration here and in the United States of America to celebrate the life, as we come to the centennial anniversary, of this great Barbadian and Guyanese woman, if we are to be fair.”
She stressed that she wanted the celebrations to be local and the National Primary School Debating Competition to be held in Chisholm’s honour.
She expressed the hope that the country would call on the Office of United States Ambassador and the Congressional Black Caucus “to be able to tell the story of a woman who dared to fight the battles that we are fighting now, 51 years ago, when she ran for President in the US.”
Emphasising the significance of such a celebration, the Prime Minister added: “The inequity that the world speaks about in income today, had they listened to Shirley Chisholm, we would not be reaping. All that we are reaping now with the culture wars across the United States of America and here…had they listened to her, we would have seen more people, and poverty would have declined not just in the United States of America, whose level of poor people, in fact, exceeds the population by far of CARICOM. Had they listened to her, we would have had a different approach to bringing people to the table; seeing people, hearing people and feeling people.”
Ms. Mottley drew the similarities between Rihanna and Ms. Chisholm, noting that the former is not just an entertainer or business woman but her “business model was nurtured by how she was nurtured in this country, at primary school and secondary school.”
She stressed Rihanna chose to form a company that produced makeup for every shade of human being and her investment in lingerie accommodates all, whether they are big or small, and this highlights that interest in all people.
The Prime Minister, in addressing the students present, acknowledged that she was inspired in her own political journey by Shirley Chisholm’s and what she wrote in her autobiography “Unbought and Unbossed”.
Urging them to remember that life’s journey is not easy, she revealed that like Shirley Chisholm’s, her own journey was not “straight or easy”.
“It is not everything that you want or even need that you will get automatically but it is the perseverance. It is the commitment; it is the discipline that will change the outcome,” she assured them as she added that there was the need to work hard as there was potential in everyone but they just needed to determine what they “do best”, believe in themselves and know that they can chart new territory and new ground like Ms. Chisholm and Rihanna.