This week the Public Design Commission of New York City has approved revised designs for a monument to Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman ever elected to US Congress in 1968. The go-ahead was given to artists Olalekan B. Jeyifous and Amanda Williams to realise a commemorative statue of the political legend.
The Public Design Commission, which oversees all permanent works of art in the city, unanimously approved the latest version of the green and yellow design.
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In a statement included in their presentation Monday, the artists said the monument — which will compose a silhouette of Chisholm intertwined with the dome of the U.S. Capitol — would symbolize how she “disrupted the perception of who has the right to occupy such institutions.”
The City is working toward a 2025 installation of the statue.
In November 2018, Prospect Park Alliance announced that a monument to Brooklynite Shirley Chisholm will be erected at Prospect Park’s Parkside entrance.
Chisholm was the political trailblazer who was both the first black U.S. Congresswoman and the first woman to seek the Democratic presidential nomination. When it arrives, Chisholm’s monument will join the ranks of Prospect Park’s statuary, with the distinction of being the park’s first to depict a real (not fictional) woman, and the city’s sixth overall.
