Jones grew up in New Jersey, and graduated from Columbia College in 1953 — and was quickly drafted into the U.S. Army. He was in for two years, but kicked as an “undesirable” when he refused to sign a loyalty oath. He later challenged that finding, and was given an honorable discharge. Jones went back to school — to the Boston University School of Law — then moved to California to practice in entertainment law. But he jumped at the chance to join the team to defend Martin Luther King Jr. from politically motivated “tax fraud” charges. An all-white Alabama jury threw out the charges, and from there Jones became King’s personal attorney and a close advisor, and moved back to New York. He also wrote drafts of speeches for King, including portions of the famous “I Have a Dream”. He also helped raise funds for King’s work, and devised legal strategies to challenge discriminatory laws.
Jones defended four Alabama clergymen who (with others) were behind an advertisement, published in the New York Times in 1960 criticizing the treatment of King and calling for support to “Heed Their Rising Voices”. Montgomery, Ala., police commissioner L.B. Sullivan sued the Times claiming defamation, and won. The Times appealed, losing in the Alabama Supreme Court, and took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In March 1964, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Alabama court’s verdict violated the First Amendment, adopting an “actual malice” standard for public officials (later extended to all public figures). Hailed as one of the greatest Supreme Court decisions of the modern era, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan is still taught in journalism schools.
Jones helped King with strategy when planning the non-violent 1963 Birmingham Campaign. When King was arrested in that demonstration, Jones worked on getting him out of jail — and meanwhile smuggled out King’s notes, which became the highly circulated the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, in which King argued that people have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws, and to take direct action rather than waiting potentially forever for justice to come through the courts. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” King wrote. “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Jones flew to New York and obtained bail for King and other jailed clergy from Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who gave Jones the bail funds directly from his family’s vault at Chase Manhattan Bank. Meanwhile, King wrote more of his thoughts for the “Letter” on legal pads that Jones left behind in his cell.
In 1967 Jones joined an investment banking firm, and became the first African-American to be named an allied member of the New York Stock Exchange, and remained King’s confidant and personal lawyer for the rest of King’s life. Jones was the author of several books, including What Would Martin Say? * (2008), Behind the Dream (The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation, 2011), and his memoir, Last of the Lions (2023). In 2024, President Joe Biden awarded Jones the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S. Clarence Benjamin Jones died in assisted living in Cupertino, Calif., on May 22, at 95.