The coming out of two films on overlooked African-American political luminaries is telling, considering Netflix’s decision to release both “Rustin” and now “Shirley,” starring Regina King, in the lead-up to the 2024 race for the White House.
Both biopics — one on the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin and the other on the first Black woman to get elected to Congress and run for president, Shirley Chisholm — are cut from the same cloth. They are earnest, sincere portrayals of what it means to claim space when you’re given none.
Though biopics tend to embellish facts for dramatic flair, Regina King revealed that they researched the film extensively, getting their hands on anything and everything they could find on Chisholm — documentaries, news footage, articles — but the most important source materials were Chisholm’s memoirs “Unbought and Unbossed” and “The Good Fight.”
Is “Shirley” an accurate depiction of what really transpired during Chisholm's presidential run? Let's separate fact from fiction and determine the film's historical accuracy.
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Getting taunted for being paid the same as her white male colleagues
Early in the film, one of her colleagues — a white congressman — tries to belittle Chisholm by repeatedly expressing his incredulity at the fact that she, a Black woman, earned as much as him. Daily, he would harass Chisholm for earning the same $42,500 salary that he does (approximately $263,507 today).
"First of all, since you can't stand the idea of me making 42.5 like you, when you see me coming into this chamber each day, vanish," Chisholm told him. "Vanish until I take my seat so that you won't have to confront me with this 42.5. Secondly, you must remember I'm paving the way for a lot of other people looking like me to make 42.5."
In reality, this actually happened. However, there wasn’t just one but many white male colleagues who were baffled by a Black woman wielding as much power as them, as confirmed by professor Glenn L. Starks, Ph.D., who co-wrote the book “A Seat at the Table: The Life and Times of Shirley Chisholm.” Though the character in the "Shirley" film may have been a composite of several people constantly antagonizing Chisholm over her pay, Chisholm is noted as using the specific quote in the 2016 "Unbought & Unbossed" documentary.
Rejecting working for the House Agriculture Committee
The film also shows an unhappy Chisholm asking the Speaker of the House, John McCormack (Ken Strunk), that her portfo
