ABSTRACT
Shirley Chisholm won with more than 87 percent of the vote and served in Congress for another decade. She was now no longer a junior member who had to fight to be recognized. Her presidential campaign had increased her national visibility and popularity. After her 1972 reelection, Chisholm's first effort was to save the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the agency responsible for administering most of the War on Poverty programs created as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society legislative agenda. Together with Bella Abzug, Chisholm introduced another piece of progressive legislation based on her long-term commitment to child care—the most far-reaching day-care bill in the history of Congress. The economic crisis and its impact on central Brooklyn was only one factor that added to Chisholm's decision to leave Congress. Along with the changes in her political life, her personal life was undergoing a dramatic transformation.
