Viola Davis Will Portray Shirley Chisholm, the First Black Woman Elected to Congress

Amazon Studios has won a “fierce bidding war” for the rights to a new series on Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, according to Deadline, with Oscar winner Viola Davis set to play the legendary New York representative.

In 1972, Chisholm was also the first woman to seek the Democratic nomination for president, as well as the first black person to do so. The speech she gave announcing her campaign highlights the challenges of running as both:

I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the woman’s movement of this country, although I am a woman and equally proud of that. I am the candidate of the people and my presence before you symbolizes a new era in American political history

Chisholm eventually lost the race for the Democratic nomination to George McGovern, who went on to lose the presidential election to the incumbent, Richard Nixon. The rest of the cast has not yet been announced, but personally, I’m ready to see Davis, as Chisholm, yell at her white male colleagues and/or make them regret the day they entered public service with her steely stares.