July 24: Bella Abzug

Feminist attorney, activist and Congresswoman Bella Abzug was born on this date in 1920. She was the second Jewish woman elected to Congress (in 1970) and earned a place on Richard Nixon’s “enemies list” for her outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War (Abzug was a co-founder of Women’s Strike for Peace). Abzug was a strong supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment and introduced the first federal gay rights bill in 1974; she also coauthored the Freedom of Information Act, among other groundbreaking pieces of legislation. After leaving Congress, she co-founded the Women’s Environmental and Development Rights Organization to transform United Nations policies towards women and international development. As a girl child, Bella was an accomplished reader of Hebrew prayer, a graffiti artist and musician, a competitive marbles player, and a rule-breaker who said kaddish in synagogue for her father (a butcher) at age 13 although females were barred from doing so. A 1977 Gallup poll named her as one of the twenty most influential women in the world.

“The inside operation of Congress — the deals, the compromises, the selling out, the coopting, the unprincipled manipulating, the self-serving career-building — is a story of such monumental decadence that I believe if people find out about it they will demand an end to it.” —Bella Abzug