Shirley Chisholm was an American politician, educator and author. She was a Congresswoman from 1969-1983. In 1968, she became the first African American woman elected to Congress. In 1972, Chisholm ran for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, and received 152 delegate votes, but ultimately lost the nomination to South Dakota Senator George McGovern. Chisholm said she ran for the office "in spite of hopeless odds," "to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo." Shirley Chisholm was a politician whom had amazing grace and strong will. This is the first self-portrait I have done. I look at it as not a portrait of myself but of my subject. By placing myself in the frame with the person I am honoring I am giving my full support through close if not only fictional proximity. This is the closest I can come to meeting them. The subjects that are self-portraits are of the people which face tribulations I relate to.