Louis peppered the series with audio of Abzug\u2019s captivating speeches, like when she spoke to a group of women about the misconceptions of the feminist movement.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been to hundreds of meetings of women, maybe thousands all over this country,\u201d Abzug said in a recording. \u201cI have yet to see a bra burned or a man exorcised, but I have seen the burning indignation of women in every single part of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the past several years, the \u201cYou Decide\u201d podcast has been creating documentary style profiles of prominent political figures in New York history. Louis told the Bronx Times that this year, Abzug emerged as a clear and necessary choice. While the Bronx-born phenom enjoyed a great amount of notoriety during her lifetime, her story had not resonated so loudly through the decades as her distinctive Bronx accent.<\/p>\n
\u201cBella Abzug was relatively unknown, especially to some of the younger women in our newsroom, which I found, personally, somewhat alarming, because she\u2019s a very important figure,\u201d Louis said.<\/p>\n
Although her time on the political stage was short, it was marked by historic legislative successes that carry great significance more than 50 years after their enactment.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was kind of like a comet across the sky, if you\u2019re talking about electoral politics,\u201d he said. \u201cShe came and she went. It was brief and brilliant, but it was over by the late 1970s.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/bella-for-congress.jpg\")
A campaign flyer for Bella Abzug\u2019s run for the U.S. House of Representatives. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.<\/p>\n
But \u201cBella\u2019s Battles\u201d makes clear that Abzug was much more than a three-term congressional representative; she had been challenging norms and fighting for social justice from day one.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing we tried to bring forward in the podcast is that she had been a full blown national and nationally and even internationally known activist for 20 years before she ever ran for office at age 50 for the first time,\u201d Louis said.<\/p>\n
Abzug was born in the Bronx in 1920 to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. Abzug\u2019s father was a butcher and she said that she grew up in a house that was always conscious of social justice, which led her toward her work in civil rights and politics.<\/p>\n
In true Bronx fashion Abzug often said that she was \u201cborn yelling,\u201d according to a 2019 biography, \u201cBattling Bella: The Protest Politics of Bella Abzug.\u201d Assembly Member Jeffrey Dinowitz, who represents the Northwest Bronx and worked on two of Abzug\u2019s campaigns during his 20\u2019s, spoke of her loudness with admiration.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aShe was smart,\u201d Dinowitz said. \u201cShe was loud in a good way. She was from the Bronx, so she didn\u2019t take any garbage from people.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Growing up in a Jewish community in the Bronx, Abzug was fiercely dedicated to her faith and it\u2019s one of the earliest places where she demonstrated her fearless determination to stand up for what was right.<\/p>\n
\u201cBella\u2019s Battles\u201d details accounts of when Abzug\u2019s beloved grandfather died, Abzug went to the synagogue to recite a mourners prayer called the Kaddish, which is said at the temple for a year following the death of a loved one.<\/p>\n
Traditionally the Kaddish was only recited by men, and Abzug was told that she could not participate, but she was undeterred, and honored her grandfather by reciting the Kaddish for the full year.\n<\/p>\n
Louis told the Bronx Times that this act of defiance set the tone for the rest of Abzug\u2019s life.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cShe immediately starts basically trying to change her position or the position of women: what they were recognized as able to do or not do,\u201d Louis said. \u201cShe starts right out challenging that, and that sets the pattern for the whole rest of her life\u2014 that if you\u2019re not willing to speak up, you\u2019ll be literally shuffled off to the side and left in the shadows.\u201d<\/p>\n
She attended Hunter College and later graduated from Columbia University Law School after being rejected from Harvard. Abzug entered the legal profession at a time when women were rarely welcomed, but forging new paths in the face of adversity had come to define Abzug\u2019s professional life.<\/p>\n
Early in her career, she took on civil rights cases, representing individuals facing discrimination and political repression. She famously took on the case of Willie McGee in Mississippi, who was a Black man accused and convicted of raping a white woman in what is largely believed to be a false accusation constructed to cover up an extramarital affair.<\/p>\n
A staunch peace activist, Abzug was a prominent figure in the anti-war movement, and frequently protested the Vietnam War and advocated for nuclear disarmament. She was eventually honored with the United Nation\u2019s highest civilian recognition, the Blue Beret Peacekeepers Award.<\/p>\n
During the second act of her life, Abzug entered politics, winning election to the House of Representatives in 1970 for New York\u2019s 19th Congressional District and becoming part of a new wave of women entering Congress. She coauthored numerous pieces of historic legislation like Title IX, the Freedom of Information Act, The Equality Act of 1974 and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) of 1974, leaving an undeniable legacy during her short time in office.<\/p>\n
In \u201cBella\u2019s Battles,\u201d Louis included audio from those who knew Abzug, like former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger, who shared how her strength and demeanor were fearless.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was extraordinary in what she accomplished, and how she presented herself, and unlike almost all of us in elected office, she was who she was,\u201d Messinger said in a recording. \u201cShe said what she believed in any instance, often with some fierceness and sometimes some swear words.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assembly Member Dinowitz remembered campaigning for Abzug when she ran for the U.S. Senate in 1976, after three terms in the House of Representatives and again in 1977 when she took on Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo in the race for the Mayor of New York City.<\/p>\n
He campaigned for Abzug in the Bronx throughout the infamous 25 hour blackout and subsequent looting in July of 1977 and a summer of unprecedented fear as the serial killer David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, terrorized the Bronx and the rest of NYC.<\/p>\n
![\"Northwest](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-24-at-6.03.55-PM.jpg\")
Northwest Bronx State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz campaigned for Bronx-born Bella Abzug twice when she ran for citywide and statewide office in the 1970s. They are pictured posing together at the 980 Democratic National Convention. Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Dinowitz<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aThat was quite an interesting year for a campaign,\u201d Dinowitz said.<\/p>\n
But he told the Bronx Times that he was committed to Abzug\u2019s candidacy. Like so many of the voices in \u201cBella\u2019s Battles,\u201d he truly believed in her.\n<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI\u2019m telling you, she was amazing,\u201d Dinowitz said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI have all the campaign buttons, I still have some of the campaign literature because I save things.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Dinowitz told the Bronx Times that he was excited that Abzug\u2019s legacy was making its way back into books, documentaries and podcasts. He wants the Bronx to remember her.\n<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI think we from the Bronx should be very proud of her,\u201d Dinowitz said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people today should know who she is. The fact that so many younger people don\u2019t\u2014 that\u2019s unfortunate.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBella\u2019s Battles\u201d recalls the power and determination inherent to women of the Bronx and brings Abzug\u2019s legacy into the present conversation. Through archival audio, firsthand accounts and political reflection, the podcast chronicles Abzug\u2019s historic fights while celebrating their lasting relevance in the lives of everyday Americans.<\/p>\n
Reach Sadie Brown at\u00a0sbrown@schnepsmedia.com<\/a>\u00a0or (214) 994-6723. For more coverage, subscribe to our\u00a0newsletter<\/a>\u00a0and follow us on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Instagram<\/a>!<\/p>\n \t