Jonathan Melrod

Born into the political and cultural quiescence of the 1950’s, Jon Melrod grew up in apartheid-like Washington D.C. Active in the student movement that opposed the Vietnam War and a supporter of Black liberation, Jon embraced the ideology that the working class held the power to radically transform society. He left the campus for the factory in 1972. For thirteen years he immersed himself in the day-to-day struggles of Milwaukee’s working class, both on the factory floor and in the political arena.

Despite FBI and Milwaukee Police “Red Squad” interference, Jon organized a militant rank-and-file caucus and rose through the union ranks to a top leadership position in UAW local 72. After a mass workforce cutback imposed by AMC’s joint venture partner French automaker Renault, he left to attend Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco in 1985. Graduating cum laude with a JD, he opened a law firm in San Francisco successfully representing hundreds of political refugees.

In 2004, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given only six months to a year to live. Determined to overcome the illness, he marshalled both western and alternative treatments and, despite the odds, survived the deadly disease. After 13-year-old Andy Lopez was gunned down by a Sonoma County deputy sheriff, he reupped his bar membership and jumped back into the struggle against police violence.

In 2019, he married Filipina actress and human rights activist Maria Isabel Lopez and became politically active in the movement to defend the ancestral lands of the persecuted indigenous peoples of the Philippine archipelago who are under attack by the army at the behest of foreign logging and mining interests. He has also become active in the human rights struggle defending imprisoned Filipino political prisoners.