Remembering Malcolm Burnstein, Free Speech Movement’s lawyer

Malcolm Burnstein, a lifelong advocate for equity and justice, passed absent on March 6 immediately after a huge stroke, at residence with his good friends and family members. He was 89 several years old.

All through the tumultuous many years of the 1950s and ’60s, Mal was a central figure as a civil legal rights advocate and lawyer, and throughout his lifetime, he was a leader in the political organizing that produced California the progressive bastion that it is nowadays. To paraphrase EarthJustice, he was there when development necessary a excellent law firm.

His contributions began in the 1950s, performing on honest housing with teams like Main, the NAACP, the Advertisement Hoc Committee to Conclusion Discrimination, and with the college students and other folks who protested the San Francisco conferences of HUAC and the demagoguery of then Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

In the course of the 1960s Mal was active in the National Attorneys Guild, and the lead legal professional for the No cost Speech Movement at UC Berkeley. He was just one of the trial counsel for the Oakland 7, who were being charged with felony conspiracy in relationship with anti-draft demonstrations at the Oakland Induction Middle and who were acquitted. He also received an acquittal for Dan Siegel, a person of the leaders of the People’s Park demonstrations in Berkeley in 1969.

In addition to being a attorney, Mal was a lifelong political strategist and organizer. His electoral work grew out of the nearby peace motion which emphasized “Think Globally Act Regionally.”  Mal led the work to have the California Democratic Social gathering oppose the war in Vietnam and was amid the central organizers of the Scheer for Congress marketing campaign in 1966, the to start with Congressional campaign that opposed the war in Vietnam and led to the establishment of progressive politics in Berkeley.  He labored closely with the community Community for New Politics, electing Ron Dellums to Congress in 1967, progressives to the Berkeley Metropolis Council, and forging alliances between the peace movement and the Black Panther Celebration. Many many years afterwards, in the 2000s, he led the generation of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party, and was the campaign treasurer and advisor for Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

Mal was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1933.  He fell in adore with California and the Bay Region when he arrived to go to legislation faculty at Boalt Corridor (now Berkeley Law) in 1955.  Soon after regulation school, he studied worldwide regulation for a 12 months at the Sorbonne in Paris and then used a different year working at the UN Library in Geneva with Frank Newman, who went on to become a justice on the California Supreme Court. 

In addition to his political and expert life, Mal’s loved ones introduced him much joy. He is survived by his wife, Catherine Trimbur, daughters Carina Urbach and Rebecca Husband, sons-in-legislation, David Urbach and Thomas Meyer, grandchildren Skye Urbach, Willow Spouse-Meyer, Gage Urbach, and Henry Spouse-Meyer, as properly as quite a few other loving loved ones users and buddies.

Mal was really a warrior for great — and throughout his extensive, exciting and useful everyday living, he combined his enthusiasm for peace and justice with a deep enjoy of relatives, friends, art, theater, vacation, tunes, mountaineering with his puppies in Tilden Park and coaching his daughter’s softball staff in elementary and center college. Actually a male for all seasons, he mentioned, “I was very fortuitous in that I was born at a time when I could be concerned in some matters which, to me, were being created to improve the entire world.”

A memorial is planned for later on this spring. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be provided to the ACLU of Northern California or the Barbara Lee for Senate campaign.