[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 130 (Monday, October 11, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1941-E1943]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          HONORING MIM KELBER

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 8, 2004

  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Mim Kelber, one 
of the bright, shining lights of the women's movement. Mim passed away 
this summer, leaving a legacy of extraordinary activism and passion for 
social justice. Best known as Bella Abzug's best friend, soul mate and 
speechwriter, Mim was also a much-admired activist and leader in her 
own right.
  I had the privilege of speaking at her memorial service on August 17, 
2004 where I said, ``This weekend the world lost one of the great 
feminists--Mim Kelber.
  A labor journalist, freelance writer and activist, Mim devoted her 
life to improving the world she lived in. Together with her great 
friend, Bella Abzug, Mim encouraged women to use their political power 
to ensure their rights.
  There is not an American woman alive today who does not have more 
rights, command more respect or enjoy more opportunity as a result of 
their work together. Mim and Bella broke through barriers, shattered 
glass ceilings and woke people up.
  Mim was a consummate organizer, a terrific writer and a true 
idealist. As co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus, the 
Women USA Fund, the Women's Foreign Policy Council and WEDO, Mim worked 
to bring other women together to work to achieve common goals.
  As an author, Mim helped draft a roadmap for women to follow in 
fighting for our rights. She wrote part of Bella's unyielding call to 
arms, including the Contract with the Women of the USA. Mim used her 
pen to help people change the way they looked at the world and how they 
lived their lives.
  Whenever I wanted to organize women to pass the ERA, to fund UNFPA or 
to bring women together for any cause, I would call Mim. She was a 
source of inspiration for me. A veteran of many of the old battles, she 
always had good advice about how to fight new struggles.
  It is incumbent upon all women to keep her spirit alive and to 
further the irresistible momentum that Mim helped foster. May we long 
remember her contributions.
  To honor her memory, I want to insert into the Record some of the 
other loving tributes

[[Page E1942]]

made by family, friends and colleagues that day:
  Her daughter, Karli Kelber: ``I am so proud to be Mim Kelber's 
daughter. She was a great speech writer and she also gave many 
speeches--some in this very room. She was very modest. She would have 
been amazed by the number of people here today. She could have written 
for Presidents though unfortunately none of the presidents in recent 
history would have been worthy enough to read her words.
  My mother spent her life working to make the world a better place. 
She had so many great ideas, especially for organizing women. She would 
often lament, ``If only the men could stay home and the women could run 
things.''
  She hated religion, blaming it for so many wars. She often told me to 
remember that there were more good people than bad people in this 
world. She believed in the golden rule. She also warned us that 
happiness was not a constant state of mind--although she wanted her 
daughters to be happy all the time.
  The consummate reporter, she was always asking questions. She taught 
me the five ``w'' questions at an early age and her sharp editing 
skills helped me through high school and college--if only she could 
have edited this speech!
  She educated me to care about others. To help make a difference. The 
lessons started quite early. She was pregnant with me when she was 
called to the House Un-American Activities hearings in Washington where 
she took the 5th Amendment. She then named me after a very famous Karl.

  Women's Strike for Peace and PTA politics were a constant in my 
childhood. She took my sister and me to countless peace demonstrations. 
And then there was Bella Abzug's strong influence on our lives. I was 
incredibly proud of the powerful speeches my mother wrote for her and 
mesmerized by the way Bella spoke. There was always hope in the air 
despite so many setbacks--and the victories were exhilarating.
  Those were exciting times for my mother yet she told me that her 
happiest days were raising my sister and me in our Clark Street 
apartment across from the Brooklyn Heights promenade. She had a deep 
love and admiration for my father. She was in awe of his constant 
energy and determination and would often exclaim, ``Your father is 
really a remarkable man!'' That he is. And she adored her five 
grandchildren.
  The peaceful world she envisioned has not yet come to pass. After 
witnessing terrorism from her living room window, in despair she told 
me, ``We worked so hard--we always thought that things would get 
better.'' She labeled herself ``a realist'' yet her whole life was 
guided by an optimistic activism. Although her last days were a painful 
struggle for her, her intellect and political astuteness would often 
shine through. She was constantly composing letters to the editors in 
her head.
  Katherine Hepburn, my mother's favorite actress, who was a true 
feminist, said, ``I have no fear of death. Must be wonderful, like a 
big sleep. But let's face it: it's how you live that really counts.''
  My mother leaves behind a legacy of social activism and love. She had 
a real vision of the way things could be and she taught us never to 
give up--and mom, we never will.''
  Bella Abzug's daughter, Liz Abzug: ``First, I want to send my deepest 
condolences to Mim's family and her friends.
  Mim knew my mother, Bella Abzug, for 60 years. They were classmates 
at Walton High School in the Bronx. They worked together at Women's 
Strike for Peace in the sixties--pro bono, of course--and when my 
mother ran for Congress, Mim was tirelessly there for her, from the 
first campaign to the last.
  In 1971, when my mother was elected to her first term in Congress, 
she named Mim as her executive policy assistant and speech writer. Mim 
chose to work out of New York instead of Washington because she didn't 
want to be separated from Harry and her children.
  In 1980, Mim and my mother co-founded the Women USA Fund and in 1990, 
they cofounded Women's Environment and Development Organization, WEDO. 
Along the way, they co-authored many, many publications. Just to name a 
few--Bella Abzug's Guide to Political Power for American Women; Women 
and Government, New Ways to Political Power and Gender Gap which they 
dedicated ``To our daughters and to young women everywhere, the future 
leaders of our Nation.''
  In other words, Bella Abzug couldn't have gotten along without Mim 
Kelber. I remember these lively discussions they had together, these 
great debates that were often loud--at least on my mother's part--and I 
think each inspired the other.
  My mother often told me that she thought Mim was brilliant. From 
everything we've heard here today, I think it's obvious why.''
  Harold Holzer: ``I first met Mim Kelber on a Monday morning in March 
of 1975--at Bella Abzug's Congressional offices at 252 Seventh Avenue. 
It was more than 29 years ago . . . a lifetime, really. But it seems to 
me, and probably to many of you, like yesterday. A yesterday when, 
unlike today, hope really did seem to be on the way.
  I can still see the configuration of our office with vivid clarity: 
Bella and Dora Friedman in side-by-side offices, usually arguing. 
Sylvia Epstein and her constituent services operation to the south, 
although she was always available to come around the corner, for 
arguing. And to Bella's North--in a bullpen setting with steel and 
frosted glass walls that only rose five feet off the floor, sat Mim. An 
island of isolation and serenity. Tranquility and concentration in the 
eye of a hurricane. And right outside Mim's enclave was what passed for 
the press office . . . namely, me. Arguing.
  But not with Mim. In fact, for 2 years I don't think I ever saw Mim's 
face for more than a few minutes every day. That's because her back was 
always to me. What I saw was her blonde hair, her head rigidly facing 
her desk against the wall, as if her gaze could not be torn away from 
the paper before her, no matter how loud the distraction. Her 
concentration was awesome. I've never seen anything like it before or 
since. What I heard from her direction was the constant clatter of her 
electric typewriter--remember that familiar sound in the days before 
computers? Rhythmically, rapidly, relentlessly, from 9 in the morning 
until 6 at night, when she would calmly board the Lexington Avenue 
subway for Brooklyn Heights to claim a bit of peace until the next 
morning.

  Even more remarkably, not only did those words flow quickly--but also 
flawlessly. It's hard to imagine--these, after all, were the days 
before we could move paragraphs, re-arrange words, and correct errors 
with the mere press of a button. But Mim had a computer operating in 
her head when Bill Gates was still a baby. She would pause from time to 
time, but for what only seemed like a second--then would come another 
clatter of the keys and another flood of words.
  The office had its own particular assembly line. Speeches and 
statements flowed from Mim's electric typewriter to my desk for 
adaptation into press releases--while an office worker faxed a copy on 
to Bella in Washington--page by laborious page. Yes, those were also 
the days of the dinosaur fax--complete with chemical smells.
  Somehow we got it done. And inevitably, almost routinely, by the time 
Bella rose to speak-on the floor of the House, on the campaign trail 
around the state, and later around the world--the magic of the words 
were filtered through the singular personality and passion of her 
lifelong soul-mate. And the result made history.
  I wasn't there to observe the development of the dynamic synergy that 
bound these two great women together. By the time I joined the assembly 
line, it was well-oiled, honed by years of practice, give and take, 
debate, a little fighting, and lots of passion--the fire and ice, yin 
and yang, of a partnership that inspired, challenged, and ultimately 
changed the nation. I simply had the privilege, for a few precious 
years, to observe it, promote it, marvel at it, celebrate it. And see 
some of its more hilarious manifestations, too.
  Once, during the Senate campaign, Mim had prepared a 20-page speech 
for Bella to deliver in Buffalo. But Mim had also written a 20-page 
speech to deliver a few nights later in New York. Bella liked both of 
them--she didn't know which to use--and then hours before we were ready 
to leave, she demanded that Mim write an entirely new speech, based on 
the best of both. Mim's reply was simple: ``Forget it Bella.'' They 
exchanged words. Bella screamed. Mim shouted back--in her own way. Then 
she simply turned and left. Bella's response: ``I'll do it myself.'' 
Then she added: ``The quiet ones always get you in the end!''
  We were late: she grabbed up the two speeches and took them with her. 
We flew to western New York--Bella, Maggi Peyton, and me--she was 
holding the two speeches, still trying to figure out what to include 
and what to cut when we took an elevator up to the top floor of a 
Buffalo hotel. But when the doors opened, a huge gust of wind blew into 
the cab and all the papers went flying into the air and settled slowly 
to the floor. Bella said to us: ``Pick those papers up and give them to 
me.'' We handed her 40 pages, which she simply shuffled together in no 
particular order. That night Bella Abzug gave two Mim Kelber speeches 
in one--and you know what? It sounded fine. Happily, Bella ran out of 
gas about two-thirds of the way through, or she might have spent the 
entire campaign there.
  Bella is gone now. 252 Seventh Avenue is a luxury co-op--a far cry 
from the place where Dora couldn't leave animal crackers in her desk 
overnight without the mice eating them. But Bella's memory burns 
bright. And Mim's words live on-in every thought inspiring the hope for 
a saner world--the world of peace and equality to which she gave such 
articulate vision.
  The quiet ones will get you in the end. And Mim's quiet--her quiet 
dignity, tirelessness,

[[Page E1943]]

eloquence--got us right in the heart--in the beginning, for the 
duration, in the end, and always.
  One day, Mim walked out of the office-after an upheaval of a fight 
with Bella, accompanied by slamming doors and angry words--the full 
deal--about something quickly forgotten. But ever the professional, 
before she left Mim took her latest speech and practically threw it on 
Bella's desk.
  Bella erupted. She pounded her fist on the table, took off her hat 
and slammed it down, and only then picked up the pages and started 
reading. She turned one page, then the other, grew silent, then looked 
up and smiled and said: ``There's no one like Mimi.'' As usual, Bella 
was right.''
  Mim was a source of strength and inspiration to thousands of women 
who heard her words or followed her career. Mr. Speaker, I ask my 
colleagues to join me in celebrating the life of Mim Kelber, a 
brilliant strategist, eloquent writer, and faithful friend.

                          ____________________