ABilly S. Jones-Hennin

Jones was born in St. John's, Antigua.[1] He was adopted at age 3 by American civil rights activists.[1] As a teenager in the 1950s, he had participated in lunch counter sit-ins. After graduating from high school, he was briefly involved with the US Marine Corps.[2]

In college, he protested against the Vietnam War.[2] In 1967 he graduated from Virginia State University.[1] Later in life, he earned a master's degree in social work at Howard University.[1]

Jones-Hennin has worked as a qualitative researcher.[3]

In 1978, Jones cofounded the National Coalition of Black Gays (NCBG) in Columbia, Maryland; the organization was the first national advocacy group of its kind for gay and lesbian African Americans.[1] In 1979, he was the logistics coordinator the first March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights,[4] and helped organize the National Third World LGBT Conference at Howard University.[1] That same year, the NCBG organized the first delegation of gay people of color to meet with Presidential representatives, of which Jones was a member.[5]

Jones also founded the Gay Married Men's Association (GAMMA), co-founded the D.C. chapter of Black and White Men Together,[2] and, in April 1978, founded the D.C. Coalition of Black Gays.[4][6][7] In the 1980s, Jones was a founding member of the Langston Hughes-Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club, an alternative to the Gertrude Stein Club.[2][5]

Jones and his then-partner, Chris Hennin, worked with the Whitman-Walker Clinic during the HIV/AIDS crisis to develop healthcare programs, educate the public on the illness, and provide support to those diagnosed.[2][4][5][7] In August 1989, he was made head of the Minority Aids Program in D.C.[8]

In 2007, Jones was the chair of the DC Mayor's LGBT Advisory Committee.[5]

Jones-Hennin has remained involved with activism and local politics,[9] and has also spoken out about homophobia in healthcare in recent years.[3][9]

Jones realized he was attracted to men early in his life, and initially identified as gay, but chose to marry on the advice of his father.[1][7] He and his wife, who lived in Columbia, Maryland, had three children, but they separated after seven years.[1][4] He maintained joint custody of his children, who have remained supportive of him throughout his life.[7] After the separation, Jones moved to Washington D.C. in 1977;[2] it was in D.C. that he began identifying as bisexual.[1] By 2022, he also identified as queer.[7]

In the late 1970s Jones met his partner and later husband, Chris Hennin, through the Gay Married Men's Association.[1][4][7]

The A in Jones-Hennin's first name comes from a godparent's initial; he chooses to capitalize the first two letters of his name.[4] Jones changed his surname to Jones-Hennin in 2008.[4]