Elaine R. Jones (born March 2, 1944) is an American
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
attorney and activist. She joined the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACP LDF, the Legal Defense Fund, or LDF) is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.
LDF is wholly independent and separate from the NAACP. Altho ...
(LDF) in 1970 and in 1993 became the organization's first female director-counsel and president.
Early life and education
Born on March 2, 1944,
in
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Be ...
, Elaine Jones came of age in the
Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
and learned its painful lessons early on. Her mother was a college-educated schoolteacher and her father was a
Pullman porter
Pullman porters were men hired to work for the railroads as porters on sleeping cars. Starting shortly after the American Civil War, George Pullman sought out former slaves to work on his sleeper cars. Their job was to carry passengers’ bagga ...
and a member of the nation's first black trade union. Her parents taught her about the realities of
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
, but also about the importance of idealism.
After graduating with honors in
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
from
Howard University
Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...
in 1965,
Jones taught English from 1965 to 1967
in
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. ...
and became one of the first
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
to serve in
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
. Following her two-year Peace Corps stint, she became the first African-American woman to enroll in the
University of Virginia School of Law
The University of Virginia School of Law (Virginia Law or UVA Law) is the law school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson as part of his "academical v ...
graduating in 1970
and, subsequently, the first to graduate.
Civil rights career
After graduating from law school in 1970, Jones joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), the nation’s oldest law firm fighting for equal rights and justice for people of color, women and the poor. She was one of the first African-American women to defend
death row
Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting Capital punishment, execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of ...
inmates. Her trials were regularly picketed by the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
.
In 1972, only two years out of law school, she was counsel of record in ''
Furman v. Georgia
''Furman v. Georgia'', 408 U.S. 238 (1972), was a landmark criminal case in which the United States Supreme Court invalidated all then existing legal constructions for the death penalty in the United States. It was 5–4 decision, with each memb ...
'', a landmark
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
case that abolished the
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
in 37 states. During this period, she also argued numerous
employment discrimination
Employment discrimination is a form of illegal discrimination in the workplace based on legally protected characteristics. In the U.S., federal anti-discrimination law prohibits discrimination by employers against employees based on age, race, g ...
cases, including
class actions
A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action ...
against some of the nation's largest employers (such as ''Patterson v. American Tobacco Co.'', ''Stallworth v. Monsanto'', and ''Swint v. Pullman Standard'').
In 1975, Jones was named special assistant to the
U.S. Secretary of Transportation
The United States secretary of transportation is the head of the United States Department of Transportation. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to transportation. The secre ...
,
William T. Coleman, Jr. During her tenure she helped write policy that opened the United States Coast Guard to women.
She returned to the LDF in 1977, where she originated the position of legislative advocate in the LDF's
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
office. In that capacity, she earned a reputation as a skillful negotiator and an ardent voice for those who have been shut out of the economic, political, and social mainstream. Her work was instrumental in reshaping the
federal judiciary to include more people of color and more judges committed to equal rights. She also played a key role in securing passage of legislative milestones such as the
Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982, the
Fair Housing Act of 1988, the
Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, and the
Civil Rights Act of 1991
The Civil Rights Act of 1991 is a United States labor law, passed in response to United States Supreme Court decisions that limited the rights of employees who had sued their employers for discrimination. The Act represented the first effort since ...
.
President of the LDF
In 1993, Jones became the first woman to be appointed president and director-counsel of the LDF. As President and Director-Counsel, Elaine Jones expanded LDF's litigation into new areas such as
health care
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...
and
environmental justice
Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justic ...
, while keeping the organization focused on its core work in
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
,
voting rights
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
, economic access and
criminal justice
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the Rehabilitation (penology), rehabilitation of o ...
.
Under her leadership, the LDF successfully defended
affirmative action in ''
Gratz v. Bollinger'' and directed a successful
clemency
A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...
campaign on behalf of an incarcerated young woman,
Kemba Smith, to underscore over-incarceration and draconian
federal mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines.
In 2000 President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
presented Jones with the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award in recognition of her activism.
In 2004, after 34 years of service, she stepped down from her position and left the LDF.
Controversy
In 2002, Jones contacted the office of
U.S. Senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and powe ...
Edward Kennedy
Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...
asking him to delay any
Senate Judiciary Committee
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations, a ...
hearings on nominees to the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. At that time, the en banc 6th Circuit was actively considering a constitutional and legal challenge brought against the affirmative action admissions program used by the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
. According to a memorandum written by the Senate staffer who spoke with her, the purpose and intent of Jones’ request was "to ask that the Judiciary Committee consider scheduling Julia
mithGibbons, the uncontroversial nominee to the 6th Circuit
at a later date, rather than at a hearing next Thursday, April 25th." Conservative critics saw the incident as unethical behavior and unsuccessfully sought to have Jones sanctioned.
Awards
* Foremother Award from
National Center for Health Research
The National Center for Health Research (formerly known as the National Research Center for Women & Families) is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization founded in 1999, providing health-related services such as providing free informatio ...
, 2016
Personal life
Jones is a member of
The Links
The Links is an American invitation-only social and service organization of prominent Black women in the United States. Founded in 1946, it is the largest nationwide organization of Black women in the USA. Members include multiple prominent wome ...
.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Elaine
1944 births
Living people
American civil rights lawyers
Howard University alumni
University of Virginia School of Law alumni
People from Norfolk, Virginia
African-American women lawyers
African-American lawyers
21st-century African-American people
21st-century African-American women
20th-century African-American people
20th-century African-American women