Clarence B. Jones, USF Diversity Scholar Visiting Professor.
Distinguished
civil rights leader and scholar Clarence B. Jones is the University of San Francisco’s inaugural Diversity Scholar Visiting
Professor. Jones was a friend, counsel, adviser, and speechwriter to slain
civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Jones
assisted King in drafting his celebrated “I Have A Dream” speech and personally
smuggled the famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail” out of the Birmingham,
Alabama city jail on scraps of newspaper and toilet paper.
At
USF, Jones is teaching the undergraduate course “From Slavery to Obama,” which
features readings, lectures, and guest speakers that highlight the people and
events that shaped America’s efforts to abolish slavery, address its historical
consequences, and create a society based on racial equality. The course is a
tribute to the legacy of King’s leadership, a leadership that transformed
America, Jones said. “It is designed to enable honest and critical discussion
of race in our country.
The
USF Office of Diversity Engagement Community Outreach established the
semester-long visiting professorship to bring leaders on social justice issues to campus to teach and engage the USF
community.
“Dr.
Jones is a living legend, and this is a remarkable opportunity for our
students,” said Mary J. Wardell, associate vice provost of Diversity Engagement
and Community Outreach. “As an internationally recognized leader in the civil
rights movement, Dr. Jones brings an unmatched level of experience to the
classroom.”
USF
awarded Jones an honorary doctorate in humane letters in 2011. In 2008, the Museum of African American History honored him for his
work during the civil rights movement. Former President Bill Clinton presented him
with a White House Letter of Commendation in 1999.
In
1967, Jones was the first African American to become a partner in a Wall Street
investment firm. Fortune Magazine twice named him businessman of the month.
Jones
has appeared on a number of television and radio programs, including “The O’Reilly
Factor,” “The Tavis Smiley Show,” and NPR, and he currently blogs for TheHuffington Post.
Jones is co-author of the
books “What Would Martin Say?” “Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech That
Transformed a Nation,” and “Uprising: Understanding Attica, Revolution, and the
Incarceration State.”
