BELLA ABZUG

'Bella Savitsky Abzug' (July 24, 1920 – March 31, 1998) was a well-known American political figure and a leader of the women's movement. She famously said, "This woman's place is in the House — the House of Representatives," in her successful 1970 campaign to join that body.

Contents

Early life

Legal and political career

Later life

External links

Early life

Abzug graduated from Walton High School in New York City, and went on to Hunter College of the City University of New York, later earning a law degree from Columbia University. She then went on to do further post-graduate work at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Legal and political career

Abzug was admitted to the New York Bar in 1947, and started practicing in New York City, particularly in matters of labor law. She became an attorney in the 1940s, a time when very few women did so, and took on civil rights cases in the South. Abzug was an outspoken advocate of liberal causes, including support for the Equal Rights Amendment, and opposition to the Vietnam War. This placed her on the master list of Nixon political opponents.
James Cannon has written that Abzug and several other Democratic congresspersons were behind a plot to block Nixon's nomination of Gerald Ford as Vice President, in the hopes that if Nixon was taken down by the Watergate scandal, the succession of the Presidency would fall to Democratic Speaker of the House Carl Albert.[1]
She served the state of New York in the United States House of Representatives, representing her district of Manhattan, from 1971 to 1977. For part of her term, she also represented part of The Bronx as well. She was one of the first members of Congress to support gay rights, introducing in 1974, the first federal gay rights bill, the Equality Act of 1974, with fellow Democratic New York City Representative, Edward Koch, a future mayor of New York City. Oddly enough, she never introduced a single public bill, although she co-sponsored many.
In 1976, Abzug ran for the U.S. Senate, but was narrowly defeated in the Democratic primary by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. She was also unsuccessful in a bid to be the Mayor of New York City in 1977, and in attempts to return to the U.S. House from the East Side of Manhattan in 1978 and from Westchester County in 1986. Abzug remained active in politics even after ceasing to be a candidate.

Later life

In 1990, she co-founded the Women's Environment & Development Organization to mobilize women's participation in international conferences, particularly those run by the United Nations.
She was well-known for her habit of wearing noticeable hats. Abzug, who was Jewish, appeared in the WLIW video ''A Laugh, A Tear, A Mitzvah''. She was also known in the Congress for being extremely outspoken. This became a problem during her legislative career - a report by Ralph Nader in 1972 estimated that her support of any bill would cost it 20 to 30 votes. (Mansnerus, Laura. "Bella Abzug, 77, Congresswoman And a Founding Feminist, Is Dead." New York Times, April 1, 1998.)
After battling breast cancer for a number of years, she developed heart disease and died in 1998 at the age of 77.

External links

★ Women of Valor Exhibit on Bella Abzug from the Jewish Women's Archive

★ Worries About a BloodbathArticle from ''Time'' Magazine where Bella Abzug refused to believe Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge would commit atrocities after the fall of Phnom-Penh.

★ Photo, at Find-a-Grave