Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman in the U.S. House of Representatives, was elected in 1968, almost one hundred years after the election of the first African American man to Congress.
Twenty-four years after Chisholm’s election, the first black woman, Carol Moseley-Braun, was elected to the U.S. Senate.
It was not until 1993, when ten additional African Americans won seats in the 103rd Congress, that black women were allowed to serve their country and their constituencies in any substantial numbers.
