Shirley Chisholm's career impacts our understanding of civil rights as it is an ongoing battle for which individuals must fight. Her childhood is one of the reasons that ultimately pushed her towards politics and her influence in the civil rights movement. Chisolm's parents were from the Caribbean island of Barbados and she was born in Brooklyn, she was sent back to live in Barbados because her parents were less fortunate with her sisters living with their grandmother and aunt. His grandmother and aunt instilled racial pride in Chisolm. While living in Barbados in a rural area, she developed a sense of pride because she was exposed to other black individuals who were in political power and had administrative powers. She earned her master's degree from Columbia University in elementary education and has become an expert on early childhood education. She also did a variety of volunteer work and volunteered with organizations such as the Bedford-Stuyvesant Political League and the League of Women Voters, which eventually led to her political career. Furthermore, Chisholm's career began to take shape as the greatest obstacle she faced was "the hostility she encountered because of her sex, the hostility she would face for the rest of her political life" (p. 44) . The hostility she faced ultimately shaped her role in the civil rights movement because she was motivated to demonstrate that not only African Americans were capable of taking part in politics but also women as “Her first successful piece of legislation by which she was very proud of, it was a bill.” which established New York State's first unemployment insurance coverage for personal and domestic employees” (p. 51). This is significant because it gave security to individuals. However, in the SEEK program that Shirley helped create, the people involved in the program didn't know who she was. “It is clear that the lives of working-class women of color are less valued than those of influential white men” (p. Winslow 154). The book continues to assert the fact that black women work discreetly, an example that Rosa Parks is just a tired woman who wanted to sit down, not an activist who was trying to awaken a civil rights cause.