Clarence B. Jones

Clarence Benjamin Jones (born January 8, 1931) is an American lawyer and the former personal counsel, advisor, draft speech writer and close friend of Martin Luther King Jr. He is a scholar in residence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Institute at Stanford University. He is the author of What Would Martin Say? (HarperCollins, 2008) and Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011).[1] His next book, Last of the Lions is scheduled for release in August 2023 (Redhawk Publications).

Clarence Benjamin Jones
Jones in Geneva in 2013
Born (1931-01-08) January 8, 1931
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
EducationPalmyra High School
Alma mater
Occupation(s)Lawyer, speechwriter, newspaper editor
Known forWork and friendship with Martin Luther King Jr.
MovementCivil Rights Movement
RelativesRichard Schiff (stepson)

In 1962, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter recommending his lawyer and advisor, Clarence B. Jones, to the New York State Bar, stating: "Ever since I have known Mr. Jones, I have always seen him as a man of sound judgment, deep insights, and great dedication. I am also convinced that he is a man of great integrity".[2]

Early life

Jones was born January 8, 1931, to parents who were domestic workers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was raised in a foster home and, brought up in the Catholic religion, attended a Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament boarding school in New England, as did his mother.[1] He later moved with his family to Palmyra, New Jersey, and graduated from Palmyra High School.[3][4]

He earned a bachelor's degree from Columbia College in 1953.[5] Following his graduation he was drafted into the United States Army in 1953 and spent nearly two years at Fort Dix when he declined to sign a loyalty oath.[3]

In 1956, he began attending Boston University School of Law, obtaining his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1959. He and his wife Anne moved to Altadena, California, where Jones established a practice in entertainment law.

In 1967, at age 36, Jones joined the investment banking and brokerage firm of Carter, Berlind & Weill where he worked alongside future Citigroup Chairman and CEO, Sanford I. Weill and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman, Arthur Levitt. Jones was the first African-American to be named an allied member of the New York Stock Exchange.[6]

Martin Luther King Jr.

Jones joined the team of lawyers defending King in the midst of King's 1960 tax fraud trial; the case was resolved in King's favor in May 1960. Jones and his family relocated to New York to be close to the Harlem office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and he joined the firm of Lubell, Lubell, and Jones as a partner. In 1962, Jones became general counsel for the Gandhi Society for Human Rights, SCLC's fundraising arm.

Later 1962, Jones advised King to write President John F. Kennedy on the Cuban Missile Crisis. He urged King to make a statement because "your status as a leader requires that you not be silent about an event and issues so decisive to the world" (Jones, 1 November 1962).

Jones accompanied King, Wyatt Tee Walker, Stanley Levison, Jack O'Dell, and others to the SCLC training facility in Dorchester, Georgia, for an early January 1963 strategy meeting to plan the Birmingham Campaign. Following King's 12 April arrest in Birmingham for violating a related injunction against demonstrations, Jones secretly took from jail King's hand-written response to eight Birmingham clergymen who had denounced the protests in the newspaper. It was typed and circulated among the Birmingham clergy and later printed and distributed nationally as "Letter from Birmingham Jail". Jones helped secure bail money for King and the other jailed protesters by flying to New York to meet with New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who gave Jones the bail funds directly from his family's vault at Chase Manhattan Bank.

Jones continued to function as King's lawyer and advisor through the remainder of his life, assisting him in drafting the first portion of the 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech[2] at Jones' house in Riverdale, Bronx,[7] and preserving King's copyright of the momentous address; acting as part of the successful defense team for the SCLC in New York Times v. Sullivan; serving as part of King's inner circle of advisers, called the "research committee"; representing King at meetings (for example the Baldwin-Kennedy meeting); and contributing with Vincent Harding and Andrew Young to King's "Beyond Vietnam" address at New York's Riverside Church on 4 April 1967.

After Martin Luther King
Jones (left) meeting President Barack Obama at the White House in 2015

After King's death, Jones served as one of the negotiators during the 1971 prison riot at Attica, and was editor and part owner of the New York Amsterdam News from 1971 to 1974. In summing up his sentiments on King's life, Jones remarked in a 2007 interview: "Except for Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Martin Luther King Jr., in 12 years and 4 months from 1956 to 1968, did more to achieve justice in America than any other event or person in the previous 400 years" (Jones, 18 May 2007).[2][8]

Following the divorce of the actor and director Richard Schiff's parents, Jones married Schiff's mother, Charlotte.[9][10]

In 2018 Jones and Jonathan D. Greenberg co-founded the University of San Francisco (USF) Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice to disseminate the teachings of King and Mahatma Gandhi.[11]

After Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law (in the fall of 2016) a mandate to develop an ethnic studies program for high schools in California, within a few years some experts were upset about the ESMC ("Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum") that had been proposed. Among those experts was Clarence Jones.[12] Jones (in a letter he wrote to Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state's Instructional Quality Commission) called the ESMC a “perversion of history” for providing material referring to non-violent Black leaders as “passive” and “docile.” Jones decried the “glorification” of violence and Black nationalism as “role models for the students”, and rejected the proposed model curriculum as “morally indecent and deeply offensive.”[12]

Legacy

The Dr. Clarence B. Jones Institute for Social Advocacy was dedicated in his honor in June 2017 at Palmyra High School, Palmyra, N.J.[13]

References
  1. "Behind the Dream". Archived from the original on 2010-12-21. Retrieved 2011-02-28.
  2. "Jones, Clarence Benjamin". Martin Luther King Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle (Stanford University). 19 May 2017. Retrieved 2019-12-04.
  3. Johnson, Thomas. A. "Man in the News", The New York Times, April 29, 1971. Accessed December 9, 2017. "When Mr. Jones was a boy the family moved to Palmyra, N. J., and he went to Palmyra High School."
  4. "Clarence B. Jones born | African American Registry". www.aaregistry.org. Retrieved 2015-11-04.
  5. Charkes, Evan (January 2008). "A Wintertime Soldier". Columbia College Today. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
  6. "Negro Named to High Position in Financial Firm. Jet Magazine, Jul 13, 1967
  7. "On Martin Luther King Day, remembering the first draft of 'I Have a Dream'". The Washington Post. 2011-01-16. Retrieved 2011-02-28.
  8. "Clinton vs. Obama: Lest We Forget". HuffPost. January 15, 2008.
  9. Pressley, Nelson (2013-02-01). "Richard Schiff returns to Washington to star in the Shakespeare's 'Hughie'". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2022-06-16. He was steeped in the street politics of the 1960s; one of the first things he says about himself is that after his parents' divorce, his mother married lawyer Clarence B. Jones, whose bio includes working with Martin Luther King and trying to resolve the 1971 riot at Attica.
  10. Caesar, Ed (2007-02-08). "Richard Schiff: Life after 'The West Wing'". The Independent. Retrieved 2022-06-16. His family were highly politicised - his mother was a leader of the Women's Liberation movement, and his stepfather, Clarence Jones, was Martin Luther King's lawyer.
  11. "History - Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice". USF. Retrieved 2022-03-26.
  12. Benedek, Emily (January 28, 2021). "California Is Cleansing Jews From History". Tablet Magazine. Tablet. Archived from the original on January 30, 2022. QUOTE: << Clarence Jones, former legal counsel and speechwriter for Martin Luther King Jr., in a letter he wrote to Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state's Instructional Quality Commission, called the ESMC a "perversion of history" for providing material that refers to non-violent Black leaders as "passive" and "docile." Jones, who is co-founder of the University of San Francisco Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice, decried the "glorification" of violence and Black nationalism as "role models for the students," and rejected the curriculum as "morally indecent and deeply offensive." [...]

    [and, from an Author's note dated 4 days later ("Feb. 1, 2021") this:]

    Don't take my word for it. Listen instead to Clarence Jones, Martin Luther King Jr.'s speechwriter, who beseeched Gov. Newsom: "It is morally indecent and deeply offensive to learn that this distorted narrative is being held up by the State of California as a model … [I]t will inflict great harm on millions of students in our state." >>
  13. Invitation to Dedication of the Dr. Clarence B. Jones Institute for Social Advocacy Archived 2017-12-10 at the Wayback Machine, Palmyra High School. Accessed December 9, 2017. "Clarence Benjamin Jones was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on January 8, 1931 and attended Palmyra High School in New Jersey from 1945 to 1949."
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