By IANS/EFE,
Washington : Geraldine Ferraro, the first American woman vice presidential candidate, has died. She was 75.
Ferraro died at the Massachusetts General Hospital. The cause of death were complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer she had suffered since 1998, the Politico newspaper reported.
Ferraro, a Democratic congresswoman representing the New York City borough of Queens, was on the Democratic ticket with Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential elections that ended with the re-election of Ronald Reagan, who swept 49 of the 50 states.
Ferraro said during her nomination that her candidacy meant discrimination was coming to an end and that American women would never again go back to being second-class citizens.
Born in 1936 in Newburg, New York, Ferraro was the daughter of poor Italian immigrants. Her father died when she was eight-years-old, leaving her mother to support the family.
The Democratic politician was elected in 1978 to the New York House of Representatives, and later ran unsuccessfully for the office of senator from New York. In 1993, then president Bill Clinton named her US ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council.
President Barack Obama hailed Ferraro’s contribution to US politics, saying she “will forever be remembered as a trailblazer who broke down barriers for women, and Americans of all backgrounds and walks of life”.