The first three episodes debut Wednesday, April 15, on FX on Hulu, followed by weekly installments. The show stars Cate Blanchett as conservative anti-ERA activist Phyllis Schlafly, and Uzo Aduba as Shirley Chisholm, an African-American politician who made a historic run for the presidency in 1972.

But who was Shirley Chisholm in real life, and what happened to her? Here's everything you need to know.

Shirley Chisholm was born in Brooklyn, New York.

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 30, 1924, the oldest of four daughters, according to the National Women's History Museum . Her parents were immigrants; her father a factory worker from Guyana, and her mother a seamstress from Barbados.

Shirley was well-educated and extremely smart, and graduated from Brooklyn Girls High in 1942 and from Brooklyn College cum laude in 1946. She was also an impressive member of the debate team, where she won prizes. She began her career in education, starting as a nursery school teacher.

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She was married to Conrad Chisholm, a private investigator.

She married in 1949 to Conrad Q. Chisholm, a private investigator (they divorced in 1977). She then earned a masters degree from Columbia University in early childhood education in 1951.

By 1960, she was a consultant to the New York City Division of Day Care, and starting to get into political life. She joined local chapters of the League of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Urban League, as well as the Democratic Party club in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Her nickname was 'Fighting Shirley.'

In 1964, Shirley ran for and became the second African American in the New York State Legislature. And in 1968 she won a seat in Congress, where she was nicknamed Fighting Shirley after she introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation and fought for racial and gender equality, the poor, and ending the Vietnam War. She served seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and retired from Congress in 1983.

Shirley was the first African-American to run for president.

She hoped to claim the 1972 Democratic Party presidential nomination. According to WomensHistory.org , she was blocked from participating in televised primary debates, and after taking legal action, was permitted to make just one speech.

You realize this woman has such a sure sense of self and such strength, she cannot be deterred," Uzo told The Boston Globe that after she read Shirleys autobiography, Unbought and Unbossed. "Thats what conviction looks like. Regardless of how a campaign ends, you can end with your head held high and your dignity intact if you stood by something you really believe in. Thats where your power lies in standing on your beliefs."

Shirley died in 2005.

After leaving Congress, she then taught at Mount Holyoke College and co-founded the National Political Congress of Black Women. She died in 2005 at the age of 80.

I want history to remember me... not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of The United States, Shirley said in her book, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and who dared to be herself. I want to be remembered as a catalyst for change in America.