Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
We've lost another lion
Nathaniel R. Jones, Rights Lawyer and Federal Judge, Dies at 93
As a voice of the N.A.A.C.P., he challenged school segregation in the North and racial bias in the military. But, he cautioned, the struggle is not over.
Nathaniel R. Jones, a former chief legal spokesman for the civil rights movement and later a federal appeals court judge who devoted his long career to eradicating the legacy of slavery endured by his own family, died on Jan. 26 at his home in Cincinnati. He was 93.
As the general counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the 1970s, Mr. Jones revealed unwelcome truths by challenging school segregation in the North and racial bias in the military justice system, in which, among other things, black defendants had complained of being unable to trust white lawyers. He was also a strong defender of affirmative action programs and other measures to address historic discrimination.
In 1976, Mr. Jones helped persuade Alabama officials, including Gov. George C. Wallace, to pardon Clarence Norris, the last surviving member of the Scottsboro Boys, the nine black teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women aboard a train near Scottsboro, Ala., in 1931.
...
In 1971, a federal judge found that Detroit’s schools had been deliberately segregated. But the United States Supreme Court later all but banned the busing of children between mostly black urban districts and mostly white suburban ones to achieve integration.
“The court has said to black people: ‘You have rights, but you don’t have a remedy,’” Mr. Jones said at the time.
...
Mr. Jones held to a simple but powerful credo. As he told The Cincinnati Enquirer in 2012, “The key to prevailing as a minority in a segregated, oppressive society is to not let the prevailing stereotypes define who you are.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/us/nathaniel-r-jones-dead.html
As a voice of the N.A.A.C.P., he challenged school segregation in the North and racial bias in the military. But, he cautioned, the struggle is not over.
Nathaniel R. Jones, a former chief legal spokesman for the civil rights movement and later a federal appeals court judge who devoted his long career to eradicating the legacy of slavery endured by his own family, died on Jan. 26 at his home in Cincinnati. He was 93.
As the general counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the 1970s, Mr. Jones revealed unwelcome truths by challenging school segregation in the North and racial bias in the military justice system, in which, among other things, black defendants had complained of being unable to trust white lawyers. He was also a strong defender of affirmative action programs and other measures to address historic discrimination.
In 1976, Mr. Jones helped persuade Alabama officials, including Gov. George C. Wallace, to pardon Clarence Norris, the last surviving member of the Scottsboro Boys, the nine black teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women aboard a train near Scottsboro, Ala., in 1931.
...
In 1971, a federal judge found that Detroit’s schools had been deliberately segregated. But the United States Supreme Court later all but banned the busing of children between mostly black urban districts and mostly white suburban ones to achieve integration.
“The court has said to black people: ‘You have rights, but you don’t have a remedy,’” Mr. Jones said at the time.
...
Mr. Jones held to a simple but powerful credo. As he told The Cincinnati Enquirer in 2012, “The key to prevailing as a minority in a segregated, oppressive society is to not let the prevailing stereotypes define who you are.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/us/nathaniel-r-jones-dead.html
19 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
The world is a better place because you were in it.
...
