Clarence Benjamin Jones
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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 Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
. 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). His next book, ''Last of the Lions'' is scheduled for release in Spring of 2023 (Red Hawk Publishing). 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".


Early life

Jones was born January 8, 1931, to parents who were domestic workers in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, Pennsylvania. He was raised in a foster home and, brought up in the
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
religion, attended a
Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament (SBS) are a Catholic order of religious sisters in the United States. They were founded in 1891 by Katharine Drexel as the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. During her life, Saint ...
boarding school in New England, as did his mother. He later moved with his family to Palmyra, New Jersey, and graduated from Palmyra High School.Johnson, Thomas. A
"Man in the News"
''
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'', 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."
He earned a bachelor's degree from Columbia College in 1953. Following his graduation he was drafted into the
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
in 1953 and spent nearly two years at
Fort Dix Fort Dix, the common name for the Army Support Activity (ASA) located at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, is a United States Army post. It is located south-southeast of Trenton, New Jersey. Fort Dix is under the jurisdiction of the Air Force A ...
when he declined to sign a loyalty oath.


Legal and financial career

In 1956, he began attending
Boston University School of Law Boston University School of Law (Boston Law or BU Law) is the law school of Boston University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top law schools in the United States and considered an eli ...
, obtaining his
Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...
degree in 1959. He and his wife Anne moved to
Altadena, California Altadena () ("Alta", Spanish for "Upper", and "dena" from Pasadena) is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in the Verdugo Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, approximately 14 miles (23 km) from the downtown ...
, where Jones established a practice in entertainment law. In 1967, at age 36, Jones joined the
investment banking Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated wit ...
and brokerage firm of
Carter, Berlind & Weill Cogan, Berlind, Weill & Levitt, originally Carter, Berlind, Potoma & Weill, was an American investment banking and brokerage firm founded in 1960 and acquired by American Express in 1981. In its two decades as an independent firm, Cogan, Berlin ...
where he worked alongside future
Citigroup Citigroup Inc. or Citi (Style (visual arts), stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking ...
Chairman and CEO,
Sanford I. Weill Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill (; born March 16, 1933) is an American banker, financier and philanthropist. He is a former chief executive and chairman of Citigroup. He served in those positions from 1998 until October 1, 2003, and April 18, 2006, re ...
and
Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...
Chairman,
Arthur Levitt Arthur Levitt Jr. (born February 3, 1931) is the former Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He served from 1993 to 2001 as the twenty-fifth and longest-serving chairman of the commission. Widely hailed as a c ...
. Jones was the first African-American to be named an allied member of the
New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
.


Martin Luther King Jr.

Jones joined the team of lawyers defending King in the midst of King's 1960 tax fraud
trial In law, a trial is a coming together of Party (law), parties to a :wikt:dispute, dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence (law), evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate claims or d ...
; 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 The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civi ...
(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 The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...
. 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 Stanley David Levison (May 2, 1912 – September 12, 1979) was an American businessman and lawyer who became a lifelong activist in progressive causes. He is best known as an advisor to and close friend of Martin Luther King Jr., for whom he hel ...
,
Jack O'Dell Jack O'Dell (born Hunter Pitts O'Dell, August 11, 1923 – October 31, 2019) was an African-American activist writer and communist, best known for his role in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Early life O'Dell was born in Detroit ...
, 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 An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in pa ...
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 The "Letter from Birmingham Jail", also known as the "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" and "The Negro Is Your Brother", is an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr. It says that people have a moral responsibility to b ...
". 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 Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979), sometimes referred to by his nickname Rocky, was an American businessman and politician who served as the 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. A member of t ...
, 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 "I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist and Baptist minister, Martin Luther King Jr., during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In the speech, King called ...
" speech at Jones' house in Riverdale, Bronx, and preserving King's copyright of the momentous address; acting as part of the successful defense team for the SCLC in ''
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''; 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 Vincent Gordon Harding (July 25, 1931 – May 19, 2014) was an African-American pastor, historian, and scholar of various topics with a focus on American religion and society. A social activist, he was perhaps best known for his work with and wri ...
and Andrew Young to King's "
Beyond Vietnam "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence", also referred as the Riverside Church speech, is an anti–Vietnam War and pro–social justice speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before he was assassinated. T ...
" address at New York's Riverside Church on 4 April 1967.


After Martin Luther King

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 The ''Amsterdam News'' (also known as ''New York Amsterdam News'') is a weekly Black-owned newspaper serving New York City. It is one of the oldest newspapers geared toward African Americans in the United States and has published columns by s ...
'' 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 The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the Civil War. The Proclamation changed the legal sta ...
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). Following the divorce of the actor and director Richard Schiff's parents, Jones married Schiff's mother, Charlotte. In 2018 Jones and Jonathan D. Greenberg co-founded the
University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The Hil ...
(USF) Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice to disseminate the teachings of King and
Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
. After Gov.
Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of S ...
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. Jones (in a letter he wrote to Gov.
Gavin Newsom Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman who has been the 40th governor of California since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California fr ...
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.”


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.''Invitation to Dedication of the Dr. Clarence B. Jones Institute for Social Advocacy''
, 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."


References


External links


Profile of Clarence B Jones at the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford UniversityClarence B. Jones' page at The Huffington Post
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Clarence Benjamin Living people Lawyers from Philadelphia Boston University School of Law alumni Columbia College (New York) alumni People from Palmyra, New Jersey People from Riverdale, Bronx United States Army soldiers New York Amsterdam News people African-American Catholics Year of birth missing (living people)