Bella Abzug

• Born: July 24, 1920
• Birthplace: New York, New York
• Died: March 31, 1998
• Place of death: New York, New York

Activist, politician, and lawyer

A member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Abzug gained national and international recognition as a vocal and staunch spokesperson for women’s rights, racial tolerance, and economic and gender equality.

Early Life

Born in New York City to Emanuel and Esther Tanklefsky Savitzky, Bella Abzug (BEHL-uh AB-zewg) grew up in a Russian Jewish household in East Bronx. The household included an older sister, Helene, as well as a maternal grandfather, Wolf Tanklefsky, who took Abzug to synagogue and taught her Hebrew.

As a teenager, Abzug joined the Zionist youth movement, and she gained experience early on as a vocal activist and fund-raiser. With her father’s death, Abzug challenged the prevailing custom of excluding females from the main area of the temple and especially from saying Kaddish, the memorial ritual usually performed by a man’s son. For the required year, Abzug went to synagogue every morning and said Kaddish for her father, and no one stopped her. Abzug learned early that getting a job done might mean ignoring, or at least bending, rules and expectations.

After graduating from Walton High School, Abzug attended Hunter College. At Hunter, she gained experience in an official capacity as her college’s class president and eventually as representative for the entire student body. By the time she graduated, she was known as an activist and as a woman who would not follow custom. She attended Columbia Law School on scholarship, graduated, passed the New York bar examination, and began working for a law firm soon afterward. By then she had met her future husband, Martin Abzug; they married June 4, 1945, her last year at Columbia.

Life’s Work

By the end of the 1940’s, Abzug was perceived as an oddity; she had a family, advocated for community causes, and practiced law in her own firm. It was during her years in court that she took to wearing what would become her trademark—flamboyant hats—to separate herself as a professional from the secretaries and other female workers. Although she gained some notoriety working on the appeals case for Willie McGee, a black man convicted of raping a white woman, it was her election to the U.S. House of Representatives that catapulted her into a forum for civil liberties and the national spotlight.

Abzug was already known in New York for her political activism when her involvement in the peace movement brought her to Washington, D.C., and the realization of the possibilities of working the system from the inside. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977. On the day of her swearing-in ceremony, she immediately did the unexpected for a first-term congressional freshman: She introduced a resolution to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam by July 4, 1971. This, of course, placed her at odds with the president of the United States, Richard Nixon, and most members of Congress. She followed this audacity by pressuring people for an appointment to the Armed Services Committee, an unexpected position for any freshman, male or female.

Active in many causes, Abzug supported an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by testifying in committee hearings; sat in the first meeting of the National Women’s Political Caucus; appeared on the cover of Life; coauthored material that led to the Freedom of Information Act; authored the Equal Credit Opportunity Act; supported legislation to place gay rights as an addendum to the 1964 Civil Rights Act; graced the covers of Ms. and Rolling Stone; and organized the federally funded National Women’s Conference (1977).

By the end of her third term, she had decided to try for a Senate seat; she was not successful, nor was she successful in regaining a seat in the House or the mayoral office in New York City. Being without an official political position, however, did not seem to slow her down when it came to her activism for human rights and political parity.

During the 1980’s and 1990’s, Abzug continued to write, speak, and travel, giving her presence, her knowledge, her organizational skills, and her time to human rights, women’s issues, and the environment. With longtime friend and associate Mim Kelber, Abzug cofounded the Women USA Fund, dedicated to publishing educational materials on pollution and poverty. In addition, the two established the Women’s Environment and Development Organization in 1990. In the mid-nineties, Abzug served on the New York City Commission on the Status of Women and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

By the late 1990’s, the time and effort she had dedicated to so many causes caught up with her. She suffered with heart problems, and then she contracted breast cancer. She died at the age of seventy-seven after complications from heart surgery.

Significance

Abzug defied society’s expectations for a woman, and, in doing so, she redefined what a woman could and should do as an American citizen. The success and recognition she achieved in doing it her way led other women to realize that they, too, could dream big and realize those dreams. By refusing to give up when confronted with criticism, when made to look ridiculous, when attacked for her personal and professional choices, Abzug created an image of a true feminist whose goal was to ensure equality and justice for all humanity, not just women. By dedicating her life to human rights in all its guises, as a working mother, a lawyer, a member of the U.S. Congress, and a citizen, Abzug was a role model for young girls and women and, some might argue, for men as well.

Bibliography

Abzug, Bella. Bella! Ms. Abzug Goes to Washington. Edited by Mel Ziegler. New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972. This work, styled as a diary, is Abzug’s account of her first year in the U.S. House of Representatives. Abzug describes the daily challenges, successes, and setbacks she faced as a freshman member of Congress.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Gender Gap: Bella Abzug’s Guide to Political Power for American Women. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984. Abzug describes the gender gap that exists between men and women electorally. In addition, Abzug offers suggestions on how women can and should use their vote to change the direction and future of their country as well as their electoral power to secure leadership positions.

Faber, Doris. Bella Abzug. New York: Lothrop, Lee, and Shepard, 1976.Written for young adults, this work offers a simplistic highlight of Abzug’s early life through her first year in Congress.

Levine, Suzanne Braun, and Mary Thom. Bella Abzug: How One Tough Broad from the Bronx Fought Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy, Pissed off Jimmy Carter, Battled for the Rights of Women and Workers, Rallied Against the War and for the Planet, and Shook up Politics Along the Way. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008. Divided into chapters that highlight different parts of Abzug’s life, this book contains recollections of more than one hundred of her friends, coworkers, relatives, and acquaintances. Includes a brief chronology of the subject’s life.