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Bella Abzug 1920 - 1998

Bella Abzug of New York, New York County, NY was born on July 24, 1920, and died at age 77 years old on March 31, 1998. Bella Abzug was buried on April 1, 1998 at Mount Carmel Cemetery 83-45 Cypress Hills St, in Queens, Queens County.

Bella Abzug

New York, New York County, NY 10011

July 24, 1920

March 31, 1998

Female

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Bella Abzug Bella Abzug (1920 - 1998)

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Bella Abzug's History: 1920 - 1998

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Introduction

Bella Abzug Born Bella Savitsky July 24, 1920 New York City, New York, U.S. Died March 31, 1998 (aged 77) New York City, New York, U.S. Political party Democratic Spouse(s) Martin Abzug Children 2 Education City University of New York, Hunter (BA) Columbia University (LLB) Jewish Theological Seminary Bella Savitzky Abzug (July 24, 1920 – March 31, 1998), nicknamed "Battling Bella", was an American lawyer, U.S. Representative, social activist and a leader of the Women's Movement. In 1971, Abzug joined other leading feminists such as Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, and Betty Friedan to found the National Women's Political Caucus. In 1970, Abzug's first campaign slogan was, "This woman's place is in the House—the House of Representatives." She was later appointed to co-chair the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year created by President Gerald Ford's executive order, presided over the 1977 National Women's Conference, and led President Jimmy Carter's National Advisory Commission for Women. Bella Savitzky was born on July 24, 1920 in New York City. Both of her parents were Russian Jewish immigrants. Her mother, Esther (née Tanklefsky), was a homemaker, and her father, Emanuel Savitzky, ran the Live and Let Live Meat Market. Even in her youth, she was competitive and would beat everyone, including the boys, in all sorts of competitions. When her father died, Abzug, then 13, was told that her Orthodox synagogue did not permit women to say the (mourners') Kaddish, since that rite was reserved for sons of the deceased. However, because her father had no sons, she went to the synagogue every morning for a year to recite the prayer, defying the tradition of her congregation's practice of Orthodox Judaism. Abzug graduated from Walton High School in New York City, where she was class president, and went on to Hunter College of the City University of New York and simultaneously attended the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. She later earned a law degree from Columbia University in 1944. Legal and political career Abzug was admitted to the New York Bar in 1945, and started practicing in New York City at the firm of Pressman, Witt & Cammer, particularly in matters of labor law. She became an attorney in the 1940s, a time when very few women practiced law. Early on, she took on civil rights cases in the South. She appealed the case of Willie McGee, a black man convicted in 1945 of raping a white woman in Laurel, Mississippi and sentenced to death by an all-white jury who deliberated for only two-and-a-half minutes. Abzug lost the appeal and the man was executed. Abzug was an outspoken advocate of liberal causes, including the Equal Rights Amendment, and opposition to the Vietnam War. In 1998 Ms. Magazine named Abzug a role model. In 2004, her daughter Liz Abzug, an adjunct Urban Studies Professor at Barnard College and a political consultant, founded the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute (BALI) to mentor and train high school and college women to become effective leaders in civic, political, corporate and community life. To commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the first National Women's Conference, a ground-breaking event held in Houston in 1977 and over which Bella Abzug had presided, BALI hosted a National Women's Conference on the weekend of November 10–11, 2007, at Hunter College (NYC). Over 600 people from around the world attended. Besides celebrating the 1977 Conference, the 2007 agenda was to address significant women's issues for the 21st century. Abzug was a featured in a segment in the 2007 documentary NY77: The Coolest Year In Hell, which explores in-depth what life was like during the year 1977 in Manhattan. An excerpt from a press conference of Bella Abzug is used when discussing the differences in political views between Abzug and fellow mayoral candidate Ed Koch. Geraldo Rivera gave detailed commentary on Bella's personality and political style. In 2010, BALI hosted their 2nd Annual Bella and Bella Fella Awards Banquet. Notable winners of the awards include Gloria Steinem, Jennifer Raab, and Ken Sunshine. In 2017, she was named one of Time magazine's 50 Women Who Made American Political History. In 2018, The Wing named a meeting room at their Washington D.C. location after Bella Abzug, calling it "The Office of Bella Azbug, Battle Leader". The video "Bella Abzug: In Her Own Words" was produced by Progressive Source Communications for the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute. On March 1, 2019, the recently-built Hudson Yards Park was renamed after Abzug as a tribute to women’s history. According to IMDB, filmmaker Jeff L. Lieberman is directing a feature documentary film entitled Bella! about the life and political achievements of the groundbreaking feminist, activist and pioneering congresswoman. The film features brand new interviews with Barbra Streisand, Shirley MacLaine, Hillary Clinton, Lily Tomlin, Nancy Pelosi, Gloria Steinem, Maxine Waters, Phil Donahue, Marlo Thomas, Charles Rangel, David Dinkins and Renée Taylor. It's scheduled to premiere in 2020, coinciding with the upcoming historic 100-year anniversary of the Women's Right to Vote.
07/24

1920

Birthday

July 24, 1920

Birthdate

Unknown

Birthplace

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Early Life & Education

Bella Abzug, 77, Congresswoman And a Founding Feminist, Is Dead By Laura Mansnerus April 1, 1998 Bella S. Abzug, a New Yorker, feminist, antiwar activist, politician, and lawyer, died yesterday at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan. She was 77. She died of complications following heart surgery, said Harold Holzer, who was her spokesman when she served in Congress. She had been hospitalized for weeks and had been in poor health for several years, he said. Ms. Abzug represented the West Side of Manhattan for three Congressional terms in the 1970's. She brought with her a belligerent, exuberant politics that made her a national character. Often called just Bella, she was recognizable everywhere by her big hats and a voice that Norman Mailer said ''could boil the fat off a taxicab driver's neck.'' She opposed the Vietnam War, championed what was then called women's liberation and was one of the first to call for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon. Long after it ceased to be fashionable, she called her politics radical. During her last campaign, for Congress in 1986, she told The New York Times, ''I am not a centrist.'' Bella Abzug was a founding feminist and an enduring one. In the movement's giddy, sloganeering early days, Ms. Abzug was, like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, an icon, the hat bobbing before the cameras at marches and rallies. After leaving the House in January 1977, she worked for women's rights for two more decades. She founded an international women's group that worked on environmental issues. She was a leader of a conference of nongovernmental organizations that paralleled the United Nations' fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Even then, she continued to rankle. Former President George Bush, on a private visit to China that coincided with the Beijing conference said to a meeting of food production executives: ''I feel somewhat sorry for the Chinese, having Bella Abzug running around. Bella Abzug is one who has always represented the extremes of the women's movement.'' When told of Mr. Bush's remark, Ms. Abzug, 75 and in a wheelchair, retorted: ''He was addressing a fertilizer group? That's appropriate.'' Her forceful personality and direct manner made her a lightning rod for criticism from those who opposed the idea of holding a women's conference. After Bob Dole, then the Senate majority leader, said he could not imagine why anyone ''would want to attend a conference co-chaired by Bella Abzug,'' she responded that she was not running the meeting but simply participating with more than 30,000 other women over how best to achieve equal rights. Editors’ Picks Worn Out by an Extrovert? You Can Go ‘Gray.’ Can a Fake Reality Show Keep Spring Breakers Away From Miami Beach? Is It OK to Read a Newspaper Online When I’ve Stopped Paying for It? But much of what Ms. Abzug agitated for -- abortion rights, day care, laws against employment discrimination -- was by that time mainstream political fare. In Congress, ''she was first on almost everything, on everything that ever mattered,'' said Esther Newberg, Ms. Abzug's first administrative assistant and one of many staff members who quit but remained devoted. ''She was first to call for Richard Nixon's impeachment, first to call for an end to the war.'' Ms. Abzug made enemies easily -- ''Sometimes the hat and the mouth took over,'' Ms. Newberg said -- but Ms. Abzug saw that as a consequence of a refusal to compromise, as well as a matter of sport. Of her time in the House, Ms. Abzug wrote in a journal that was published in 1972 as ''Bella,'' ''I spend all day figuring out how to beat the machine and knock the c*** out of the political power structure.'' She worked relentlessly at organizing and coalition-building. A founder of Women Strike for Peace and the National Women's Political Caucus, she spent a lifetime prodding for change, with a lawyer's enthusiasm for political channels, through organizations from the P.T.A. to the United Nations. She made friends easily, too. ''She's fierce and intense and funny,'' said her longtime friend Gloria Steinem. ''She takes everyone seriously. When she argues with you fiercely, it's because she takes you seriously. And she's willing to change her mind. That's so rare.'' Her First Speech, In a Subway Station Bella Savitzky Abzug was born on July 24, 1920 in the Bronx, the second daughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia. Her father, Emanuel Savitzky, whom Ms. Abzug later described as ''this humanist butcher,'' ran (and named) the Live and Let Live Meat Market on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan. She said she knew from the age of 11 that she wanted to be a lawyer, and not long afterward gave her first public speech, in a subway station, while collecting for a Zionist youth organization. She went from Hunter College, where she was student body president, to Columbia University Law School, where she was an editor of The Law Review, to a practice representing union workers. Ms. Abzug traced the wearing of her trademark wide-brimmed hats to those days. She once recalled: ''When I was a young lawyer, I would go to people's offices and they would always say: 'Sit here. We'll wait for the lawyer.' Working women wore hats. It was the only way they would take you seriously. ''After a while, I started liking them. When I got to Congress, they made a big thing of it. So I was watching. Did they want me to wear it or not? They didn't want me to wear it, so I did.'' All the while, she was a leftist and an agitator. Later, exasperated with her Congressional aides, she wrote: ''I just don't understand young people today, quite frankly. Our struggle was political, ideological and economic, and we felt we couldn't make something of ourselves unless we bettered society. We saw the two together.'' In the 1950's, Ms. Abzug's law practice turned to other cases identified with the left. One client was Willie McGee, a black Mississippian convicted of raping a white woman and sentenced to death. Ms. Abzug, who was pregnant at the time, argued the case in Mississippi while white supremacist groups threatened her. Though the Supreme Court stayed the execution twice, Mr. McGee was eventually executed. She also represented people accused of Communist activities by Senator Joseph McCarthy's Congressional committee and its counterpart in Albany. In the 1960's, Ms. Abzug became an antiwar activist. A founder of Women Strike for Peace, she became its chief lobbyist, protesting nuclear testing and, later, the Vietnam War. She organized insurgent Democrats into other groups, too, becoming a leader of the movement against President Lyndon B. Johnson and a prominent figure in the 1968 Presidential campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy. During those years, Ms. Abzug started navigating New York City politics. She and her husband, Martin, moved from Mount Vernon, the Westchester suburb where they had raised their two daughters, to a town house at 37 Bank Street in Greenwich Village. In 1970, Ms. Abzug ran for Congress. The 19th Congressional District, which snaked from lower Manhattan to the West 80's, had four registered Democrats to every Republican and had been represented in Congress for seven terms by Leonard Farbstein, a solid but rather somnolent liberal. Ms. Abzug won the Democratic primary with 54 percent of the vote. Campaign Became A Women's Crusade At this point, Bella Abzug became national news, a flash of local color in a political year. She seemed to be everywhere, clapping backs and jabbing biceps. Her campaign headquarters next to the Lion's Head, a writers' and journalists' bar in Greenwich Village, was also a day-care center for her legions of female volunteers. The women's crusade she led brought considerable, if sometimes derisive, attention. Though she eventually took 55 percent of the vote, she had genuine Republican opposition, unusual in an era when New York's main political action consisted of various Democratic factions knifing one another. The Republican-Liberal candidate was Barry Farber, a well-known radio talk show host. Mr. Farber drew many Democrats who resented Mr. Farbstein's humiliation or were simply put off by Ms. Abzug's style. To her chagrin, Mr. Farber accused Ms. Abzug, who advocated direct negotiations between Israelis and Arabs, of flagging in her support of Israel. For years after that, she made a point of stating her Jewish credentials, dating to childhood: her family was religious and she went regularly to synagogue (though she was bothered that women were relegated to the back rows of the balcony), studied Hebrew and was enrolled for a time at the Jewish Theological Seminary. When Ms. Abzug went to Washington, she sought an appointment to the Armed Services Committee. She wanted a resolution calling for an immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and she vowed to take on the military-industrial complex. She wanted to end the draft. She wanted national health insurance, money for day-care centers and housing, and more money for New York City, all to be paid for with billions siphoned from the Pentagon's budget. She got little of this, but during the next six years ''she was indefatigable,'' Ms. Newberg recalled. ''She yelled a lot,only because she couldn't get everything done.'' And if she couldn't, Ms. Newberg added, it was partly because ''her agenda was too pure for her moment in time.'' Ms. Abzug did become expert at parliamentary rules, worked them skillfully and was famously well prepared for every vote, hearing and committee spat. The ''sunshine law'' requiring governing bodies to meet publicly came out of a subcommittee she headed. She coaxed funds for New York from the Public Works Committee. She was a co-sponsor of the women's equal rights amendment. ''She was one of the most exciting, enlightened legislators that ever served in the Congress,'' said Representative Charles B. Rangel of Manhattan, with whom Ms. Abzug sometimes collaborated and sometimes sparred. From her first day on Capitol Hill -- the day she dismayed her colleagues by introducing her Vietnam resolution -- Ms. Abzug derided the Congressional club, the seniority system, the log-rolling and back-scratching. She did not spare fellow Democrats; when she spoke of liberals, it was usually dismissively. She badgered the House leadership over committee appointments and votes. She badgered the President, too. Invited to a reception at Richard Nixon's White House, she accepted (while writing in her journal, ''Who wants to listen to his pious idiocies?''), then announced to Nixon in the receiving line that her constituents demanded a withdrawal from Vietnam. For all of her railing against Democrats who went along to get along, Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill named her one of his dozen assistant whips, and by most accounts she worked well with some of the crustiest fixtures in the House. Still, a 1972 report by Ralph Nader estimated that Ms. Abzug's sponsorship of a measure often cost it 20 to 30 votes. Her reputation as an irritant came from all quarters. Jimmy Breslin wrote of a campaign worker who repaired to the Lion's Head one night, holding his side and swearing never to work for Ms. Abzug again. ''She punched me,'' he explained, in a quarrel over scheduling. The next day, Mr. Breslin reported, Ms. Abzug called the aide. ''Michael, I called to apologize,'' she said. ''How's your kidney?'' Mr. Breslin also recounted the Congresswoman's introduction to Sol Linowitz, the former chairman of the Xerox Corporation and a Democratic Party luminary: ''Are you the man that used to be head of the Xerox?'' Ms. Abzug asked. ''That's right,'' Mr. Linowitz replied. ''I'm glad to meet a big shot,'' Ms. Abzug said. ''I'm in hock $35,000 on my campaign.'' Ms. Abzug acknowledged loneliness in her years in Congress. ''Outside of Martin and the kids, I don't feel very related to most people at this point,'' she wrote in 1971. ''I feel detached in social situations. I'm always thinking about other things, about Congress, about the issues, about the political coalition I'm trying to organize. It never leaves me. I even have trouble relating to some of my closest friends, though God knows I still love them, even if they don't know it.'' Always, she returned to Manhattan to spend weekends with her husband. She had married Martin Abzug in 1944. The two New Yorkers met on a bus in Miami, when both were on the way to a Yehudi Menuhin concert. Mr. Abzug, a stockbroker and an author of two published novels, had next to no interest in politics. In an interview in 1970, he murmured, while his wife was out of the room, ''The political bug is a curious bug.'' But he was, she said, her best friend and supporter, and ''one of the few unneurotic people left in society.'' Corrosive Ambition Hampers a Career Ms. Abzug's own ambition was too corrosive for many people, even -- or, perhaps, especially -- for her fellow New York Democrats. When the State Legislature sliced up her district in 1972, they urged her to challenge one of the two conservative incumbent Democrats in adjoining districts, Representative John J. Rooney or Representative John M. Murphy. Instead, she opposed a liberal Democrat, William Fitts Ryan, in the 20th District, encompassing the Upper West Side and the Riverdale section of the Bronx. The primary was bitter and, eventually, politically expensive to Ms. Abzug. Bill Ryan was one of the earliest heroes of the city's insurgent Democrats, an early opponent of the Vietnam War and a genuinely well-liked man who, as many of his constituents knew, was waging a gallant fight against cancer. Mr. Ryan defeated Ms. Abzug in the Democratic primary but died before the general election. The Democratic County Committee appointed Ms. Abzug as the candidate to replace him, but she was challenged by Mr. Ryan's widow, Priscilla, who ran on the Liberal line. Ms. Abzug won in November, but she had made dedicated enemies who believed she was an overly aggressive politician who would not hesitate to attack anyone who got in her way. Ten years later, she was denied a seat in the state's delegation to the national party's biannual conference because New York leaders considered her disruptive. In 1976, she gave up her House seat to run for the Senate. She lost in the primary, to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, by a margin of only 1 percent. Two more campaigns quickly followed. (In a 1978 interview, she said: ''I'm a politician. I run for office. That's my profession.'') She lost to Edward I. Koch in a crowded mayoral primary in 1977. The next year, running for the House again, she lost, again by just 1 percent, to a little-known Republican, S. William Green. She was appointed co-chairwoman of President Jimmy Carter's National Advisory Committee on Women, and then, after disagreeing with him over economic policy, was dismissed. The majority of the committee members resigned in protest. Ms. Abzug, unapologetic, said with a shrug, ''I've got to find myself another big, nonpaying job.'' Her next and last campaign was in 1986, this time for a House seat in Westchester County. She won the primary in a burst of the old, ebullient campaigning style, but lost in November to Joseph J. DioGuardi, the Republican incumbent. It was during that campaign that Martin Abzug died. Her friends said Ms. Abzug never recovered. Nine years later, she said, , ''I haven't been entirely the same since.'' There was one more bid for office, for her old House seat on the Upper West Side, when she announced her candidacy to replace Representative Ted Weiss on his death just before the 1992 election. But she was quickly eliminated from the field at the party convention. During the next decade, Ms. Abzug suffered from ill health, including breast cancer, but continued to practice law and work for women's groups. She wrote a book, ''Gender Gap,'' with her old friend Mim Kelber. She started a lobbying group called Women U.S.A. and founded the Women's Environment and Development Organization, a group that works with international agencies. In addition to her daughters, Eve and Liz, Ms. Abzug is survived by her sister, Helene Alexander of Great Neck, N.Y. ''I've been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prizefighter, a man hater, you name it,'' Ms. Abzug said of herself in ''Bella.'' ''They call me Battling Bella, Mother Courage and a Jewish mother with more complaints than Portnoy.'' ''There are those who say I'm impatient, impetuous, uppity, rude, profane, brash and overbearing. Whether I'm any of these things or all of them, you can decide for yourself. But whatever I am -- and this ought to be made very clear at the outset -- I am a very serious woman.''
Professional Career

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 20th district In office January 3, 1973 – January 3, 1977 Preceded by William Ryan Succeeded by Theodore Weiss Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 19th district In office January 3, 1971 – January 3, 1973 Preceded by Leonard Farbstein Succeeded by Charles Rangel
03/31

1998

Death

March 31, 1998

Death date

Unknown
Cause of death

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04/1

1998

Gravesite & Burial

April 1, 1998

Funeral date
Mount Carmel Cemetery 83-45 Cypress Hills St, in Queens, Queens County, New York 11385, United States
Burial location
Obituary

Years before being elected to the House of Representatives, she was an early participant in] Women Strike for Peace. Her political stands placed her on the master list of Nixon's political opponents. Nicknamed "Battling Bella" in 1970, she challenged the 14-year incumbent, Leonard Farbstein, in the Democratic primary for a congressional district on Manhattan's West Side. She defeated Farbstein in a considerable upset and then defeated talk show host Barry Farber in the general election. In 1972, her district was eliminated via redistricting, and she chose to run against William Fitts Ryan, who also represented part of the West Side, in the Democratic primary. Ryan, although seriously ill, defeated Abzug. However, Ryan died before the general election, and Abzug defeated his widow, Priscilla, at a party convention to choose the new Democratic nominee. In the general election, Priscilla Ryan challenged Abzug on the Liberal Party line but was unsuccessful. In the general election, she was easily reelected in 1974. For her last two terms, she also represented part of The Bronx. She was one of the first members of Congress to support gay rights, introducing the first federal gay rights bill, known as the Equality Act of 1974, with fellow Democratic New York City Representative Ed Koch, a future mayor of New York City. She chaired historic hearings on government secrecy. She was chair of the Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights. She was voted by her colleagues as the third most influential member of the House, as reported in U.S. News & World Report. Often recognized by these vibrant hats, though they were banned from the House, Bella reminded all who admired them: "It's what's under the hat that counts!" In February 1975, Abzug was part of a bi-partisan delegation sent to Saigon by President Ford to assess the situation on the ground in South Vietnam near the end of the American War. Abzug was the only member of the delegation to oppose continued military and humanitarian aid to South Vietnam, yet her views quickly gained support in Congress. Abzug herself was the one who later told President Thieu directly that the U.S. would not provide "one more dollar" of support. The controversial withdrawal of support contributed to the collapse of South Vietnam. Representative Bella Abzug at press conference for National Youth Conference for '72, November 30, 1971 Abzug's career in Congress ended with an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in 1976, when she narrowly lost to the more moderate Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had served in both the Nixon and Ford Administrations as White House Urban Affairs Advisor, Counselor to the President, United States Ambassador to India, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Moynihan would go on to serve four terms in that office. Abzug was defeated in a four-way primary race for the Senate in 1976 by less than one percent. However, she was not mentioned in the news and the coverage was only about the male candidates. President Carter "appointed her chair of the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year and, later, co-chair of the National Advisory Commission for Women". Abzug was a supporter of Zionism. As a young woman she was a member of the Socialist-Zionist youth movement of Hashomer Hatzair. In 1975 she challenged the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 (revoked in 1991 by resolution 46/86), which "determined that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination". I've been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prizefighter, a man-hater, you name it. They call me Battling Bella. — Bella Abzug, in her 1971 Congress journal, quoted by Braden in Women Politicians and the Media Later life and death Abzug never held elective office again after leaving the House, although she remained a high-profile figure and was again a candidate on multiple occasions. She was unsuccessful in her bid to be Mayor of New York City in 1977, as well as in attempts to return to the US House from the East Side of Manhattan in 1978 against Republican Bill Green, and from Westchester County, New York in 1986. She authored two successful books, Bella: Ms. Abzug Goes to Washingtonand The Gender Gap, the latter co-authored with friend and colleague, Mim Kelber. She continually devised innovative strategies to further her vision of equality and power for women in the United States and abroad. Abzug founded and ran several women's advocacy organizations, in 1979 Women U.S.A. and continued to lead feminist advocacy events, for example serving as grand marshal of the Women's Equality Day New York March on August 26, 1980. In the last decade of her life, in the early 1990s, with colleague Mim Kelber, she co-founded the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), in their own words "a global women's advocacy organization working towards a just world that promotes and protects human rights, gender equality, and the integrity of the environment".[citation needed]. As WEDO president, she became an influential leader at the United Nations and at UN world conferences, working to empower women around the globe. Among its early successes was the World Women's Congress for a Healthy Planet held in Miami in 1991, where 1,500 women from 83 countries produced the Women's Action Agenda 21. Extending its perspective into the next century, this is a blueprint for incorporating women's concerns into development and environmental decision-making at all levels. Following through on her belief that women's direct participation is absolutely necessary for social change, Bella developed the Women's Caucus, which used new methods to get women involved in every phase of planning and development for UN conferences.The Women's Caucus analyzed documents, proposed gender-sensitive policies and language, and lobbied to advance the Women's Agenda for the 21st Century at the UN Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Bella and WEDO went on to play a leading role at the UN. They worked through the Women's Caucus to highlight issues of greatest concern to women in both ongoing policy-making and at major UN conferences, including the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Governments would make commitments during UN conferences, promising to meet some of the goals furthered by the conference. WEDO developed strategies to monitor governments and make the results public. Abzug with New York Mayor Ed Koch and President Jimmy Carter (1978) During her last years, Bella has kept up her busy schedule of travel and work, even though she travels in a wheelchair. Bella led WEDO until her death, giving her final public speech before the UN in March 1998. After battling breast cancer for several years, she developed heart disease and died on March 31, 1998 from complications following open heart surgery. She was 77. Abzug was interred at Old Mount Carmel Cemetery, Glendale, Queens County, New York. She was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls and is the recipient of numerous prestigious national and international awards. A year before her death, Bella received the highest civilian recognition and honor at the U.N., the Blue Beret Peacekeepers Award. She appeared in the WLIW video A Laugh, A Tear, A Mitzvah, as well as in Woody Allen's Manhattan (as herself), a 1977 episode of Saturday Night Live, and the documentary New York: A Documentary Film. Family In 1944, Bella Savitsky married Martin Abzug, a novelist and stockbroker. They met on a bus in Miami on the way to a Yehudi Menuhin concert and remained married until his death in 1986. In the pilot episode of Lou Grant (1977), Joe Rossi gives the name of Bella Abzug when he first meets Lou. In 1979, the Supersisters trading card set was produced and distributed; one of the cards featured Abzug's name and picture. Abzug appeared in Shirley MacLaine's autobiographical book Out on a Limb (1983). In the 1987 ABC Television mini-series "Out on a Limb" based on the book, Abzug was played by Anne Jackson. In 1994 Abzug was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Abzug was honored on March 6, 1997 at the United Nations as a leading female environmentalist.

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Bella Abzug lived 1 years shorter than the average family member when died at the age of 77.

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15 Memories, Stories & Photos about Bella

Amanda S. Stevenson

17.7k+ favorites

06/13/2020

Kate Murray Millett, Ph.D.

This poster was signed by me (as Sandra Moseley) Kate Millett, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug and the artist, Jeannie Friedman.

Date & Place: August 26, 1970

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Amanda S. Stevenson

17.7k+ favorites

04/15/2019

Bella Abzug

A photo of Bella Abzug. She sat next to me at the theater. She autographed my Women Unite poster by Jeannie Friedman, and she helped me change voluntary sterilization policies. These were not laws, these were policies created by male doctors to keep women from getting the best and safest birth control possible.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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