Page One

Berkeley remembers famed attorney Robert Treuhaft  

Few American biographies are so clearly a patchwork of political struggles, and even fewer of us live the majority of our breathing moments struggling for the rights of others, Berkeley said goodbye to one such man this weekend. 

Memorial services were held on Saturday for famed civil rights Robert Treuhaft at H’s Lordship in the Berkeley Marina.  

Treuhaft died in New York on November 11 at the age of 89. Best known for his years of working on the forefront of several battles in American politics, he was also a known communist during the McCarthy era. After relocating to Oakland, he defended the Black Panthers in the 60’s and more recently collaborated with his late wife, Jessica “Decca” Mitford, on her best-selling book “The American Way of Death,” which exposed wide-scale corruption in the funeral industry and resulted in regulatory interventions.  

He also took up defending labor unions, the Free Speech Movement and defending poor victims of police brutality, antiwar protesters, workers' rights, etc. — you name a cause worth fighting for in America and he was right there. 

In the Bay Area Civil Rights movement, he is credited not only for much of the growth of the progressive movement in the 1940’s but also inspired the political awakening of many who are now synonymous with Bay Area politics. 

In 1953, he was dragged out before the House of Un-American Activities Committee in California and branded as one of the most dangerous and subversive lawyers in the country.  

His wife Jessica, in the book the original “Muckraker” credits him as being her inspiration for the “The American Way of Dying.” It was his work defending the widow’s of longshoreman that spawned the original germ for this expose into the funeral industry.  

“The subject perfectly united his fervor on behalf of the economically exploited with her macabre sense of humor: Until his death, morticians' 

luxury catalogues were still arriving at the Oakland house and making him harrumph and chuckle,” wrote Stephanie Zacherak about the famous couple. 

This book helped shape consumer legislation, and it was reported to influence Robert Kennedy’s decision to purchase a modest coffin for his murdered brother.  

From 1962 to 1978 Treuhaft worked on behalf of the East Bay Civil Rights Congress and became the lead counsel for various demonstrators in Oakland as well as Berkeley.  

He remained active, well into his 80’s, and continued the struggle. 

He inspired his younger colleagues to not give up. One such story was retold on Saturday that had originally been told on he and his wife’s 50th wedding anniversary. 

One young black lawyer recalled that Treuhaft had pushed her to finish law school. She was sitting in a bedroom of the Oakland house and said she suddenly felt inspired. It was then that Treuhaft came in and told her that the room had the same effect on Maya Angelou. “It’s where she begun I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” he said. 

The UK Independent, CCB Berkeley Oral History 

and the San Francisco Chronicle contributed to this report