American Masters

(lively music) (button clicking) - Do you know me?

Let's make this political power structure ours.

(lively music continues) Morning.

It's because of the killing of the spirit and the meaning and the belief of American democracy that I do impeach the President (crowd cheering) of the United States.

- When Bella first ran it was considered such a unicorn event, there just weren't that many women running.

She was blunt, she was candid, (crowd cheering) she was poking the beast.

- Would you support Nixon's dirty war?

(crowd yelling) - Walking in the street with Bella people would be yelling, "give them hell, Bella!"

If a doorman or a taxi driver said something she disagreed with she would argue with him, because she really cared.

(laughing) (camera snapping) (crowd cheering) - I wanted her to get elected because we desperately needed her voice so I went out with her on this truck.

- That people have to live, people have a fundamental right to eat.

- When sh got to Washington, it was an explosion.

- Are you suggesting to me, that all of your files of the CIA are presently in the possession of the FBI?

- I refuse to have you say we are arbitrarily acting in this regard, Madame Chairman.

- Also, for a lot of us women most of our lives we were told to shut up and sit down.

And it was very encouraging to be with a woman who was saying to us speak up.

- [Crowd] Gay rights now.

- In another groundbreaking effort she introduced the first national gay and lesbian rights bill.

Bella was way ahead of the curve.

(crowd yelling) And the rest of the world had to catch up.

- I'm rearing to go.

- [Reporter] What's happening here, are they, whoever they are, are they trying to do something to you?

- [Reporter 2] Mrs.

Abzug said her CIA file dated back to 1953 (buttons clicking) and included reports on her anti-war activities and Vietnamese contacts.

- I'm here at the New York delegation with Bella Abzug and her famous hat, do you ever take that off?

- What a question.

- I was bold because of Bella.

Bella and those other Congress women they spoke up, they spoke out, they organized, they challenged and I felt capable to do that and a responsibility to do it.

- There is not even one woman among the 100 US senators.

- She did like to be first.

But I was afraid she would lose everything.

- I don't remember Bella ever sharing doubts or concerns about anything she would just say, you gotta get in there and fight.

- She knew that she wasn't there just for Bella and her generation, that she was there to make sure that the doors were open for what came next.

(dramatic music)