Uzo Aduba Hopes ‘Mrs. America’ Will Highlight the Forgotten Leaders of the Women’s Movement

There are an endless amount of powerful historical figures leading the charge in FX on Hulu’s latest original series, Mrs. America. But few are as dynamic, accomplished, and depressingly lost to history as Shirley Chisholm. Not only was Chisholm one of the first women to run for President of the United States, she was the first person of color to do so, as well as the first black woman.

Ahead of the premiere of the new limited series, Decider spoke to the actor behind Shirley Chisholm, the iconic Uzo Aduba. At the Television Critics Association, Aduba revealed her personal connection to this great woman, how this powerful figure was lost to history, and what a show about the 1970s can teach us about modern feminism.

DECIDER: What drew you to this project?

Uzo Aduba: I love telling stories of the missing. I think I’ve said this for like a million interviews, and this was no exception. The fact that there were so many women in this catalog who were being featured that either I quite frankly had never heard of or I had heard of but knew the population at large had not been familiar with. And then in that grouping was the fact that someone as important as Shirley Chisholm, Representative Shirley Chisholm, was part of that void. It was important to me. I thought she’s a remarkable icon, she’s incredibly powerful and brave and strong women and I was excited about the prospect of that.

Did you know much about her career prior to the project?

I knew she had been the first woman and person of color to run for President of the United States. My mom was a huge fan of hers and she was so excited when I told her I was going to be doing this. It was from a superficial level but I had no idea about the type of opposition she was facing both within her own party and from her opponents. And how so much of that opposition had to do with the limited idea of what was possible to them for her. You know what I mean?

During Mrs. America’s panel at the Television Critics Association, you said something along the lines of how Mrs. America highlights the problems feminism still has with intersectionality. Could you elaborate on that a bit?

I was saying have we finished building that bridge? I said and mean that I don’t think we’ve completely gotten to the perfect place with intersectionality within feminism. I think the difference between then and now is cognizance.

Right now the idea of feminism and women’s movements at large have been primarily focused on white female feminism ideas and demands and haven’t alway included minority women and other intersectional groups. I think the difference now is we’re living in a time where so many marginalized groups are feeling the impact of their oppression simultaneously and in a very front row, front downstage way. We are all as separate groups realizing our collective power and understanding that together strong, separate weak. We’re only as strong as our weakest member, you know? Therefore that realization, that wokeness — I think the “woke” in this instance really is the awareness of one’s blindspot. I don’t think it was even something that was thought of because we were so caught up in our own need. But we’re now realizing, “Oh wait, it doesn’t even matter if I get my demand or my needs are met. If the needs of any other organized groups have also not been met then so too do I remain oppressed.”

That’s what I love so much about the series. It shows the problems of white feminism being exclusionary rather than embracing intersectionality. Without it, it breaks apart. There are very few piece of art I’ve seen that make that argument so clearly.

That’s what’s great about Mrs. America. It takes us back. When you’re living in the current time, it’s easy to sort of romanticize and have a little bit of revisionist history on the past and think “Well this is what it was. And this is where we are and we’re so far removed of it.” Until you have the mirror actually held back up to you and you’re forced to read page by page the history book and the actual account or, in this instance, watch the experience as it was.

And I think another piece that often happens when you’re reflecting is we oftentimes gravitate only to the mythology of the event. Characters and pieces that maybe don’t have the same grandeur get lost in the fray. This is what I think is so great about [Mrs. America]. All of those characters, not just the mythological ones, all of the players are brought back alive. So you get to see it come back to you as it was truly versus the way you remember. Or have chosen to remember what was important to you.

It’s interesting to see all of these players come back and analyze who’s made it to “mainstream” history books and who hasn’t.

Absolutely.

I wanted to really dive into your standalone episode “Shirley,” when the feminist movement stops supporting Shirley Chisholm’s run for President. What I really loved is that you see your character slowly come to the realization that her party doesn’t have her back and her dreams aren’t going to happen. How did you get in that headspace?

There are these two powerful lines she had in the script. Two separate scenes. There’s a scene where she’s in the hospital with George Wallace and talking about how she never knew there was anything wrong with being black. And I remember my own mother — I’m a child of immigrants. My family immigrated from Nigeria. And my mother saying almost those words verbatim. It was actually really ghostly to see it written on the page. This idea and hearing those stories where (my mother) was applying for a job as a teacher and she went to a prestigious private school, and she showed up for her interview and the secretary sent her to the interview for the custodial position. She didn’t even understand, quite honestly, the ignorance having not been brought up in an environment of racism. Hadn’t even given the impression on her life what another cultural society could think was possible for her. She believed every possibility was available to her. She sent in her resume, she got a call saying for her to come, and she assumed.

I guess the answer to the question is what got me in that headspace was doing it for something larger than myself. Doing it for finding my own bravery in the world, knowing how courageous she had been at that time. We have to remind ourselves we’re looking at a woman who is standing in the twilight of the civil rights voting act just having received the right to vote. That’s where I found my chutzpah, my reason in it.

And then there was another line that she has with her husband and she says something to the effect of “Bella thinks this and Gloria thinks that, but why am I the only one who believes that I can be president?” That really anchored me in a way because she couldn’t believe the disbelief. For her the sky was the limit, not the limit being the sky.

She’s right in her disbelief. She’s a super qualified candidate. She’s ideal. And then there’s this giant horrible black cloud of racism.

And it’s complex because she succeeded already in the area of becoming a congresswoman and she was serving her constituents. Her greatest slogan was “Unbought and unbossed.” This was a woman of conviction who knew she stood on the right side of history. And so to be then bogged down by the time in which she was born. I genuinely believe that she was running to for real run and she genuinely thought she had a chance if people were ready to give her one, past the stereotype of gender, past the stereotype of race. It would be so amazing to think if Shirley Chisholm was here today what kind of a force of nature.

She’d be a whirlwind of progress.

That woman, that person gets to be president. What would she do with this mighty country?

It was so devastating, something that stayed with me while I was making this — you know she was born in the United States and moved back to Caribbean. She’s also a child of immigrants. Her family moved her back to Barbados where she grew for a period of time. So she knew America as a citizen but she also knew America from afar. And there’s something about that. I remember really linking into this idea that she really believed in the promise of the Constitution. She believed in the promise of America and what America preached itself to be that we all know: We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal. She really believed those words, I believe. That was the spirit under which she was running.

You would have to, to come up against all of this criticism and so many people telling her no and she still says yes.

Absolutely. It’s all men, not some men. All men.

The first three episodes of Mrs. America premiere on FX on Hulu Wednesday, April 15. New episodes will premiere every Wednesday. 

Watch Mrs. America on FX on Hulu