èPARA éPAR@ ` RTEXT ` DAbzug, Bella1920╨public officialBorn in New York City on July 24, 1920, Bella Savitsky attended public schools and graduated from Hunter College in 1942. She then entered the Columbia University Law School, where she was an editor of the Columbia Law Review, and from which she took a degree in 1945. In June 1945 she married Martin M. Abzug. She was admitted to the New York bar in 1947. Over the next 23 years she divided her time between the practice of law╤labor law principally, along with a heavy load of civil rights work, much of it on a pro bono publico basis, defending indigent, African-American, and McCarthy-smeared defendants╤and work on behalf of various causes, especially those of peace and disarmament. She was a founder of the Women Strike for Peace organization in 1961, and in the later 1960s, as the growing involvement of the United States in the Vietnam war became a focus of public protest, she led in agitating for change through such groups as the Coalition for a Democratic Alternative, which supported Senator Eugene McCarthy╒s challenge to President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Coalition for an Open Convention, and the New Democratic Coalition. In 1970 she entered the Democratic primary and unseated Leonard Farbstein, a seven-term incumbent, to win the congressional nomination from New York╒s 19th Congressional District, a district encompassing a wide cross-section of voters from the upper class to slum dwellers. In November she defeated her Republican-Liberal opponent, and in January 1971 she took her seat in the 92nd Congress. Her campaign had established a national image as a brash, flamboyant, and fearless supporter of the peace movement, the feminist movement, and other liberal-radical causes, and her career in Congress followed that pattern. She broke with House tradition by rising on her first day to offer a resolution, one that called for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Indochina. Outspoken in her criticisms of presidents and other figures, she became an established public figure herself as she proved to be reliably exciting copy for national media, and her perennial wide-brimmed hats became a familiar symbol. In 1971, along with Gloria Steinem and Shirley Chisholm, she co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus, which aimed at increasing the participation of women in government. She retained a seat in Congress, through a redistricting, in the 1972 and 1974 elections. In 1976 she gave it up to run for the Senate, but she was defeated by Daniel P. Moynihan. In September 1977 she lost a primary election for the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City. In February 1978 she lost a special election held to fill the congressional seat vacated by Mayor Edward Koch. She played a prominent role at the National Women╒s Conference held in Houston in November 1977. She was subsequently named cochairman of the National Advisory Committee on Women by President Jimmy Carter, a post she held until January 1979, when Carter dismissed her on grounds that the committee╒s public criticisms of the administration had been counterproductive.She returned to the practice of law in 1980, but remained in the public eye as the president of Women USA, a grassroots political action organization, as a contributor to Ms. magazine, and as a daily news commentator for the Cable News Network. In 1984 she published Gender Gap: Bella Abzug's Guide to Political Power for American Women with Mim Kelber. In 1992 she served as a senior advisor to the United Nations Conference on Environmental Development (╥Earth Summit╙) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. εstyl ` ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ $ !I ≤ !I !I Ä 5¬ Å !I , !I < !I ù 5¬ ÿ !I ¼ !I ▐ ║ !I ┐ !I ▐ ╧ !I
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