Paying attention to politics, especially right now, can be a depressing business.  Regardless of how you feel about current events, the things that are happening have an air of hopelessness.  Will things ever get better?  That is what we want from our politicians, right?  To help us to get to that better place, whatever that means?  Faith is different if for no other reason than we derive our sense of hope not from people, but from God.  He is the only person on whom we can completely rely for He is love.  Until we meet Him in Heaven, however, we have to co-exist with people with whom we have severe disagreements, and who may actually be working against our broader interests for the betterment of their own.  That is as true today as it was in the late 1960s and early 1970s when Shirley (2024) Chisholm (Regina King) entered the realm of American politics.  She was, as we shall see, a remarkable woman who believed in the kind of change that would benefit the most people.  As will also become apparent, her story has a note of tragedy in that the things for which she fought are still being contested today.  What will also be evident is that she would not want us to give up.

The people that Shirley represented as the first African American woman elected to the United States Congress would not want her to give up.  She is voted into office in 1968 from Brooklyn, New York, where she once worked as a school teacher.  Her constituency looks like America if you go into places beyond the suburban bloc, but who are just as American as the rest of us.  As a leader in her community, she is able to easily deal with the racism from her fellow freshmen congressmen and women, such as a Southern representative continually telling her how amazing it is that she makes the same salary as him.  She further breaks with traditional Congressional norms when she demands that she be put on a committee that has more to do with the people she represents, and succeeds.  By 1972, her reputation is such that, at the beginning of the year, her staffers come to her with what is seemingly a wild proposition: that she run for the Democrat party nomination in that year.  Those around her see the obvious battle that lies ahead of her, but given the successes she has already experienced, she believes the time is now to effect change.  In order to run a campaign, a candidate needs good people, and rather than go through the synopsis giving you an account of the major events, I will tell you about those close to her.  First, a campaign needs a manager, and she is explicit in finding the right person regardless of their skin color.  The person they find is an outsider, Stanley Townsend (Brian Stokes Mitchell).  Though he is incredulous as to their chances, he works to begin the process of getting her the delegates she will need to garner the nomination come December.  This means traveling around and doing the things a presidential hopeful does.  At one point, though, she is attacked by a person with mental health issues, which shakes her.  This brings us to her husband, Conrad Chisholm (Michael Cherrie).  Shirley is upset that Conrad had not been quicker to defend her.  His response is that he is happy to support her, but his background role makes it difficult for him to react at times.  He is one of those many secondary people at her rallies, and one of the main groups she is trying to rally is the youth.  At that time, the United States had recently lowered the voting age to eighteen, and Shirley sees them as a key demographic.  To that end, she names a former intern of hers in Washington, D.C., Robert C. Gottlieb (Lucas Hedges), as her youth coordinator.  His contribution will prove valuable when, since he is a law student, he is called upon to fight the major news outlets when they decide not to give her equal airtime along with the rest of the candidates.  His success is a major boost to her political fortunes at a time when her already slim prospects are looking bleaker, especially when she fires Stanley.  Another boost for Shirley comes from Barbara Lee (Christina Jackson), a single mother from California who wants to be part of the societal solution but thinks the system is rigged against people of color.  She meets Shirley during the campaign, and the candidate convinces the young women to be a part of the staff in whatever capacity she can manage given her life as a mother.  This comes when she makes contact with Huey P. Newton (Brad James), the leader of the Black Panthers.  This African American revolutionary group is suspicious of Shirley, especially when she visits Southern racial demagogue and Democrat presidential hopeful, George Wallace (W. Earl Brown), in the wake of an attempt on the white man’s life.  Huey and Shirley meet in the Los Angeles home of actress Diahann Carroll (Amirah Vann), and Shirley comes away from it with the Black Panther endorsement.  While it does not lead to her winning the California primary, her performance is enough for her to go along with a plan to split the delegates among the candidates who earned them.  This gives her a base to go to Miami and potentially win the primary after some politicking and a few rounds of votes.  What she is counting on are the commitments of various African American delegates and politicians who have given their verbal, and even written, word that they will back her.  However, after she gives a speech to their caucus stressing the need for unity, some of them break with their promises and switched their votes to Senator George McGovern (archival footage), the leading candidate.  Those who have been with her from the beginning are devastated, but she (mostly) maintains her composure, stressing how well they did and the need for an absence of hate.  We close with the real-life Barbara Lee, now the mayor of Oakland, California, talking about Shirley’s impact.

The question remains: what impact did Shirley have?  It is a difficult question to answer.  What remained consistent throughout her campaign is that she is in it for the people, all people, regardless of creed, race, or station.  She has an unerring sense of right and wrong and does not deviate it from it.  Her attitude is also informed by her faith.  When she hears that George has survived the assassination attempt and is in the hospital, it is her decision to visit him.  Her advisors, and the Black Panthers as we have already seen, see this as a betrayal of everything she stands for, which is understandable.  In case you are not familiar with George Wallace, go watch Forrest Gump (1994).  Wallace, then governor of Alabama, is the guy standing on the steps of the University of Alabama as the state attempts to keep the school from being integrated.  As such, Shirley’s advisors tell her that seeing him is basically political suicide.  Such considerations are of no concern to her when there is a fellow human in need, and this is Christianity at its finest.  What makes the scene even better is when she prays over him.  This touched me personally.  Praying over people has been one of my favorite activities during my own Faith journey.  It changes lives, and we can see this happen for George.  She may not have won the presidency, and that is tragic.  When I view this movie, coupled with what I know of her as a historian, I believe she would have been a powerful advocate for the kinds of people Jesus mostly ministered to while He was on Earth.  Beyond that, she treated everyone as the children of God that they are, instead of with hatred.  If anyone had a right to hate, it is (was) Shirley Chisholm.  She would not give in to that emotion, and doing so is not of God.

Shirley is not intended to be a Godly movie in the sense of being religious, but she was a Christian and lived by those values.  If we all did that, politics would not be the headache that it is today.  This was her belief, and watching this movie might make a difference for you, too.