Biography
Donald Jelinek is a lawyer, licensed first in New York and then in California, now practicing law in Berkeley. In the course of his trans-coastal relocation, he lived and worked for three years as a civil rights lawyer in Mississippi and Alabama. Once in California, he lived on Alcatraz Island with the Native Americans who had seized the land as a protest against broken treaties – and then defended them in court. He returned to New York State as Chief Counsel for the indicted survivors of the 1971 Attica prison revolt.
After serving three terms on the Berkeley City Council, he won the general election for Mayor in 1994 with just short of 50% of the vote but lost the runoff.
In addition to lawyering, he is finishing a book on The Sixties – from both a Deep South and Urban perspective. He has written cover stories for The Nation and the local alternative press. He lives with his photographer wife in Berkeley.