January 12, 2005
Founder of nation’s first rape crisis program dies
By Kristin Bender, STAFF WRITER
A Berkeley woman who co-founded the nation’s first rape crisis center nearly 35 years ago, after her teenage foster daughter was sexually assaulted, has died.
Oleta “Lee” Kirk Abrams died at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center on Saturday after a short illness, daughter Rebecca Abrams said.
She was 77.
Ms. Abrams made her mark as a pioneering woman and grassroots organizer in 1971 when she founded Bay Area Women Against Rape. Three decades later, the organization serves hundreds of women and their families each year from its Oakland offices.
“She was one of the significant movers and shakers in the very beginning of the rape crisis movement,” said Executive Director Marcia Blackstock. “She identified very early on the needs of rape survivors that were not being met in the system and found ways to create inroads to those systems.” Ms. Abrams founded the nonprofit organization after her 15-year-old foster daughter was raped by a man in the stairwell of Berkeley High School and then treated like a criminal, Rebecca Abrams said.
The foster daughter’s name has always been kept private.
She was not allowed to phone home and kept from her family at the police station, according to published news reports about the incident.
At the hospital, the victim was kept waiting for an hour before a doctor arrived. In the room, he made jokes, but never checked the girl for pregnancy or venereal disease, according to the reports.
“She was treated like a piece of meat, there was no compassion, nothing that helped deal with the emotion of the (rape),” said Rebecca Abrams of Hayward.
Infuriated, Ms. Abrams and two other women founded the organization, which now offers a 24-hour rape crisis hot line, counseling, educational programs and survivor advocacy services to women of all ages and backgrounds.
“She was a real champion for women’s rights issues,” Blackstock said. “She was determined and really believed strongly in grassroots movements, volunteerism and women’s rights. Through her diplomacy she found ways to make people in the system listen to her.”
After the organization was up and running, Ms. Abrams became the first victim-witness advocate for the Alameda County district attorney’s office, accompanying rape victims to court hearings and working to minimize additional trauma from the criminal justice system.
It was there in 1976 that she met Bill Danenhower, a police investigator who was newly assigned to the Oakland police sexual assault unit.
“She made our jobs much easier. She relieved us of the burden of making sure everyone was treated correctly, so we could devote ourselves to doing what was needed to put the bad guys away,” Danenhower wrote in an e-mail to Rebecca Abrams.
Danenhower said Ms. Abrams was instrumental in developing protocols and procedures for law enforcement agencies, the district attorney’s office, an medical facilities in the investigation of sexual assault crimes.
“She made all of us more aware of the need for special considerations in dealing with special victims,” he wrote.
In addition to her volunteer work, Ms. Abrams worked with autistic children while working on her master’s degree at the University of Pittsburgh. She had also studied drama.
Between 1984 and 1999, she was a teacher at Hintil Kuu Ca, an early childhood center serving Native American children in the Oakland public schools. Colleagues and friends remembered Ms. Abrams as gentle, soft-spoken, funny and generous with the children.
Her family said she was much the same way with adults.
“My mom was a woman’s woman, a lover of life,” said Rebecca Abrams. “She loved children, she loved people. When I was growing up I never knew who I’d find on the couch because she always took people in. She was a rich and wonderful woman.”
In addition to Rebecca Abrams, she is survived by sons Maxey McClintock of Berkeley and Simon Peter Kirk Abrams of Oakland; daughter Alexandra Chordas of Berkeley; and five grandchildren. Her husband Melvin Saul Abrams preceded her in death. Services are pending.
Donations in Ms. Abrams’ name should be made to the Hintil Parent Committee c/o Hintil Kuu Ca, 11850 Campus Drive, Oakland 94619.