Jane Fonda remembers Congresswoman Bella Abzug

In this clip Jane Fonda pays tribute to the late Congresswoman, Bella Abzug.

Shirley MacLaine, Marlo Thomas, Phil Donahue, Jane Fonda, Former VP Candidate Geraldine Ferraro and Gloria Steinem were among the speakers at a memorial service for the late New York Congresswoman, Bella Abzug.

This CSPAN clip is from the 1998 funeral service that was held at Riverside Memorial Chapel in NYC.

Bella Abzug was a feminist and civil rights lawyer and later served the state of New York in the United States House of Representatives, from 1971 to 1977.

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 congressman Ed Koch, who later became mayor of New York City.

It's been written that Abzug and several other Democratic members of congress were behind a plot to block Nixon's nomination of Gerald Ford as Vice President, in the hopes that if Nixon were taken down by the Watergate scandal, the succession of the Presidency would fall to the Democratic Speaker of the House.

Bella Abzug also appeared as herself in many film and television productions, most notably in Woody Allen's "Manhattan" and a 1977 episode of Saturday Night Live.

Further Viewing:

Rosie O'Donnell talks to teenagers at the National Women's Conference, organized by Bella Abzug's daughter Liz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDtjgL...

Further reading:

Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom's oral history, 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 War and for the Planet, and Shook Up Politics Along the Way. (Paperback)

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Video Clip:

All rights reserved and Copyright 1998 by: National Cable Satellite Corporation
C-SPAN.org

No infringement is intended.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• News
• Politics
• Jane
• Fonda
• Bella
• Abzug
• Congresswomen

[BrentAudi]

Awesome speech!

[Hazelnutcake]

Jane Fonda has always been an important voice & great actress...go Jane!