CUPERTINO, Calif. — Clarence B. Jones, the attorney and speechwriter who collaborated with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his iconic “I Have A Dream” address, has passed away at the age of 95.
Jones passed away Friday at a senior care facility in Cupertino, a community in the San Francisco Bay Area, with family members by his side, according to a family statement.
“Our father lived a life of conscience,” the family of Jones stated Tuesday. “He believed, until his final days, that an idea” is “more powerful than the march of any army. We are grateful beyond words for the love, the prayers, and the friendships that sustained him, and us, across this long and remarkable life.”
Serving as King’s legal counsel, Jones played a crucial role in pivotal moments during the Civil Rights Movement. He is recognized for secretly transporting portions of King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” from his prison cell and continued crafting speeches with the civil rights leader until King’s assassination in 1968.
Jones assisted in developing King’s 1967 “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” speech delivered at Riverside Church in New York exactly one year prior to King’s death. The address became a landmark moment in King’s opposition to the Vietnam War and American militarism overall. King contended that America’s involvement in the conflict worsened poverty throughout the nation.
Jones entered the world on Jan. 8, 1931 in Philadelphia, with parents who worked as domestic help for an affluent Quaker household located miles away in New Jersey, according to the Clarence B. Jones Institute for Social Advocacy. Jones earned the honor of class valedictorian at an integrated high school in Palmyra, New Jersey. His talent for speechwriting emerged in 1949 when he delivered a graduation address focused on dismantling racial barriers.
Jones continued his education at Columbia University in New York. Following graduation, he was drafted into the U.S. Army but received an honorable discharge nearly two years afterward. He subsequently obtained his law degree from Boston University.
In 1960, marking the beginning of a transformative partnership, Jones was contacted by King to join his legal defense team for a tax evasion case filed by Alabama. Jones shifted away from his entertainment law practice in California and relocated his family to New York City. This move allowed him to work closely with King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference while serving as a full-time advisor, attorney and speechwriter.
Jones participated as a legal team member in the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan case. The Supreme Court reversed a libel judgment against the publication, which had printed an advertisement criticizing police actions toward civil rights protesters in Montgomery, Alabama.
Following King’s assassination, Jones transitioned to employment with a Wall Street investment banking company and achieved the distinction of becoming the first Black American to receive allied member status with the New York Stock Exchange.
Jones later pursued academic endeavors. In 2012, he became a faculty member at the University of San Francisco, instructing law students and undergraduates in classes including “From Slavery to Obama.” In 2018, he helped establish the Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice at the institution. During this period, he also accepted a scholar-in-residence position at Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute.
In 2023, Jones released a memoir about his time working alongside King, titled “Last of the Lions: An African American Journey in Memoir.”
The next year, he was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian recognition, from then-President Joe Biden. Several weeks afterward, an emotional Jones made an appearance at a San Francisco Giants baseball game alongside Golden State Warriors basketball player Stephen Curry to deliver the ceremonial first pitch. Curry has produced and co-directed a documentary short film about Jones.
“The Baddest Speechwriter of All” received recognition at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is scheduled to become available on Netflix later this year.
Jones leaves behind five children and his longtime partner Lin Walters.
Arrangements for funeral services and a public memorial celebration are currently being developed.
