Shirley Chisholm was born in New York in 1924. Starting her career as a teacher, she served as a director of the Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center until the late 1950s. According to Womenshistory.org, Chisholm became the second African American in the New York State Legislature in 1964. In 1968, she was the first African American woman in Congress where she worked on the Education and Labor Committee and helped form the Black Caucus. By 1972, she was the first woman and African American to seek nomination for president of the United States from two political parties. Chisholm died in 2005 at 80 years old.