Shirley Chisholm, elected to Congress as the first black woman in 1968 embodied the essence of a pioneer through and through.
She was the first female candidate to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 and co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus.
Regina King and her sister Reina King feel that the bold legislator is not recognized to the full extent that she ought to be – serving as the inspiration for Shirley, their most recent Netflix movie.
The King sisters produced the project under their banner, Royal Ties Productions, in addition to Regina playing Chisholm and highlighting her audacious presidential bid.
Regina told NBC News, “Our mother was largely responsible for our knowledge and awareness of Shirley Chisholm. As we grew older, we came to understand that, when we brought up her name, a large number of people—not just white people, but black people as well—would not know who we were talking about”.
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Oscar-winner, John Ridley was hired by the King sisters to write and direct the movie. When Reina King and Ridley worked on the ABC series American Crime, which won two of Reina’s four Emmys, she knew they were going to work on more projects together.
Reina King remarked, “I always go back to the year Regina won the Oscar because we met with John the following day and we brought the project out and pitched it to find a home. We’ve always desired John.”
Intimate in her approach, Ridley focuses mostly on Shirley’s inner circle and their interactions as she campaigns for president.
Chisholm is a trailblazer from Brooklyn who was partially raised in her mother’s native country, Barbados.
Among the cast for the project are Conrad Chisholm (Michael Cherrie), her political mentor Wesley McDonald “Mac” Holder (Lance Reddick, in a farewell performance), Arthur Hardwick (Terrence Howard), a white youth coordinator with an Ivy League degree named Robert Gottlieb (Lucas Hedges), and fundraisers.
In addition to copying Shirley’s famous gap—which King achieved by using a custom piece to cover her own four front teeth—King also paid great attention to Chisholm’s speech pattern and the people she addressed in public, capturing the subtleties of her speeches.
“As a congresswoman, she would need to communicate in a variety of ways to accomplish her goals and work across party lines. I could see and understand that she was a strategist and communicator,” she remarked.
“We also look at Shirley’s cordial friendship with George Wallace, the notorious governor of Alabama who practiced segregation, and her later affiliation with the Black Panther Party.”
Another fascinating high point is the conflict between Shirley and her sister, Muriel St. Hill, which Reina King plays – seeing her come out of acting retirement after over thirty years.