Bella Abzug

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Bella's Story
Bella Abzug, who died on March 31, 1998 at age 77, was a life-long activist for human rights, women's rights, and the environment. Original thinker and pioneer throughout her life, Bella was often ahead of her time. She sometimes lost, but, undaunted, she continued to fight.

Bella was at the forefront of a series of political and social movements, first in the USA, later in the international sphere. A list of issues and causes in which Bella was involved reads like a history of social activism in the second half of the 20th century: anti-McCarthyism; civil rights; the movement against nuclear weapons and the war in Vietnam; the fight for women's rights; and the global struggle to protect the environment.

Bella combined broad vision with an understanding of the practical realities which must be faced in order to gain that vision. A constant undercurrent was Bella's feminism. Her belief was that in order for the world's problems to be solved, women must be empowered socially and economically. For that to happen, women must become as politically active as men. Toward the end of her life she said, "You can't continue to have a world without equal participation of men and women. That's my central thesis." She added, "It's not that I think women are superior to men, it's just that we've had so little opportunity to be corrupted by power. And I jokingly add that we want that opportunity. But seriously, I believe that women can change the nature of power."

In 1920, the same year that women in the us won the right to vote, Bella was born in New York City to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. She rebelled against social rules from the beginning, especially those that excluded her because she was a girl. When she was thirteen her father died; Bella insisted upon saying the Kaddish prayer for him in the synagogue every day for a year. This prayer for the dead is traditionally forbidden for women, among Orthodox Jews.

President of her high school class and of the student government at Hunter College, Bella chose to become a lawyer, daring for a woman in those days. She attended Columbia University Law School, which gave her a scholarship.

As a lawyer specializing in labor law and civil rights, Bella worked on social issues throughout her years of law practice. Her most controversial case was that of Willie McGee, a Mississippi black man charged with raping a white woman. In fact, the woman and McGee had had a long relationship, but because of the racist and separatist policies of the South in the 1950's, McGee was charged with rape. Because of her position as McGee's defender, Bella was denied a hotel room in Mississippi. Pregnant, she spent the nights sleeping on a bus station bench. The case was lost, and even though Bella and others continued appeals for McGee, he was eventually executed.

In 1961 Bella co-founded Women Strike for Peace. The group lobbied for a ban on nuclear testing, influencing President Kennedy to sign a limited test ban treaty.

At age 50, Bella decided to run for political office herself, winning a seat in the House of Representatives in 1970. She gained attention with her slogan, "This woman's place is in the House – the House of Representatives." Despite huge demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, the fighting was at its height. Bella's first resolution after taking her new office was to call for immediate withdrawal of all us troops.

Bella brought to the political scene the qualities of courage, honesty, outspokenness, and broad vision that are often missing in today's politicians. One of only nine women in the 435-member House, Bella fought for the right to wear her wide- brimmed hats in the House. On a more serious note, she championed passage of the Equal Rights Amendment; wrote the first law banning discrimination against women seeking credit; and introduced legislation calling for comprehensive child care, Social Security for homemakers, and abortion rights. Bella also focused on veterans issues, lesbian and gay rights, and aid to cities.

Bella also co-authored and got passed the Freedom of Information Act, the Right to Privacy Act, and looked into illegal and hidden activities of the CIA, FBI, and IRS. During the Watergate uproar, Bella was the first member of Congress to call for impeachment of President Nixon.

Bella constantly fought for greater participation of women in politics. As the co-founder and first co-chair of the National Women's Political Caucus, she called for equal numbers of women and men in elective and appointive offices. A member of the Democratic National Committee, Bella also led the successful fight for equal representation of women at Democratic Party Conventions.

According to a Gallup Poll, Bella was said to be one of the twenty most influential women in the world. People urged her to run for the Senate, which she did in 1976. Unfortunately, she lost the Senate race; this was the end of Bella's career as an elected official.

However, Bella remained as politically active as ever. In this second phase of her career as an activist, she became concerned with global women's issues and the environment. In 1985 she organized a panel for the UN Women's Conference in Nairobi, Kenya. The panel, entitled "What If Women Ruled the World?" was attended by thousands of women. The outcome was that Bella, along with Mim Kelber and other women activists, founded the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) in 1990.

Bella used her extensive experience in labor law and in government to help further women's interests internationally through WEDO. 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. The Women's Caucus has become an institution at the UN, modeling new ways to proceed and empowering others.

During UN conferences, governments would make commitments, promising to meet some of the goals furthered by the conference. But, how would people know whether these goals were actually met? WEDO developed strategies to monitor governments and make the results public. For example, at six months and at one year after the Beijing Women's Conference, Bella presented reports informing governments of their progress in meeting goals.

Bella also believed the environment to be a key issue, saying "we believe that the continuance of the earth and the maintenance of its health is fundamental to life itself." WEDO became engaged in health issues, co-sponsoring a ground-breaking hearing in 1993 on the links between breast cancer and environmental pollution. Attracting international attention, the hearing gave rise to an ongoing WEDO campaign, 'Women, Health and the Environment: Action for Cancer Prevention,' which co-sponsored the First World Conference on Breast Cancer in Ontario, Canada in 1997.

During her last years, Bella kept up her busy schedule of travel and work, even though she traveled in a wheelchair. Activist to the end, Bella gave her last speech at the UN only a day before entering the hospital for a heart operation. She died a month later.

During the year before her death, when asked about women's roles in the future Bella said, "Women will run the 21st century. The new millennium has to have significant change. We can't continue the errors of the past, which have been created largely by one part of the population. This is going to be the women's century, and young people are going to be its leaders." Bella leaves a powerful legacy for the future in the many activists she trained and organizations she founded.

Social and Political Movements of the 1960s and 1970s in the US

Civil rights movement
Anti-war movement (Vietnam)
Anti-nuclear movement
Feminist movement
Rights of the disabled
Back-to-the-land movement
Increased attention to Asian and
Native American religions
Environmental movement

In many ways, this period of social upheaval transformed American society, especially the roles and expectations of women and girls.

NGOs (non-governmental organizations), privately funded foundations and other organizations concerned with a wide range of international issues. They are not sponsored by any government, but play an important role in the UN and in major international meetings.

Things to Do and Discuss
1 What do you think Bella means by "the errors of the past"? How does she think women might change things? In your country, if women played a more active role politically, what do you think might be changed?

2 Choose two of the social or political movements of the 1960's and 1970's in the us for further research. How did the movements lead to changes in the us of today? What was Bella's role? If you are not from the us, did anything similar occur in your country?

Selected Bibliography
Abzug, Bella S. Bella! Ms. Abzug Goes to Washington. Edited by Mel Ziegler. New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972.

Abzug, Bella S. with Mim Kelber. Gender Gap: Bella Abzug's Guide to Political Power for American Women. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.

Abzug, Bella S. and others. Women: Looking Beyond 2000. New York: United Nations, 1995.

Cook, Blanche Wiesen. "Bella Abzug", in Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, edited by Paula E. Hyman and Deborah Dash Moore. New York: Routledge, 1998.

Swerdlow, Amy. Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960's, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Other Resources

Women's Environment & Development Organization (WEDO)
355 Lexington Avenue, 3rd floor,
New York, NY 10017-6603.
Phone 212.973.0325
Web site: www.wedo.org