Paul Jones (1928-2010)

It is sad news to report that a friend of mine, Paul Jones, has passed away.  I got to know Dr. Jones in 2004, after he sent me a letter that contained a few words of encouragement.  He had seen a newspaper article regarding some work some of the faculty and students at the University of Alabama had undertaken to talk about the University's connections to the institution of slavery.  (The short version of that story is that the university owned people and a bunch of the faculty were important generators and promulgators of proslavery thought.)

The letter had been addressed something along the lines of "Professor Brophy, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL."  No zip code -- that's usually a bad sign when it comes to letters.  I got more than a handful of letters with such an address and when I opened this letter I fully expected that it would tell me I should quit or be fired or some such.  While I didn't particularly enjoy getting those kinds of letters, I learned a lot from them.   But this one was rather different.  Because it contained, as I said, a few words of encouragement -- and also a photocopy of yet another letter that Dr. Jones had received fifty five or so years before.  It was a letter rejecting him from the Univeristy of Alabama's law school.  So I called him and thus began a friendship.  It was a pleasure to see, over the next few years, the University's re-establishment of a friendship with him, as well.

Now I'm going to turn to a post I wrote last January about Paul Jones....

This story is decades in the making.  It starts back in the 1930s when, as a child growing up in Alabama, Jones dreamed--as so many boys did--of playing for the Crimson Tide.  Mr. Jones played for Alabama State instead.   But his dreams of studying at the University of Alabama continued.  So in the late 1940s Paul Jones, then a student at Howard University, applied for admission to the University of Alabama's law school.  Again, he was a generation too early. He was told that while the administrators here were aware that the United States Supreme Court might mandate that the University admit students like him, he should not pursue a lawsuit.  The letter included this paragraph:

While this may be gratuitous, I am adding that we at the University of Alabama are convinced that relationships between the races, in this section of the country at least, are not likely to be improved by pressure on behalf of members of the colored race in an effort to gain admission to institutions maintained by the State for members of the white race. On the contrary, we feel that inter-racial relationships would suffer if there is insistence that the issue be joined at this time. The better elements of both races deplore anything that tends to retard or jeopardize the development of better relationships between the races. For these reasons, therefore, we hope that you can persuade yourself not to press further your application for admission here.

Well, Jones was not a man to be deterred by adversity.  Paul Jones went on to a successful career--first as a businessman, then working with the interracial commission in Birmingham, and later as an official in the Nixon Administration.  He worked as an administrator with the Peace Corp and later with the Department of Education.  While with the Education Department Jones awarded a large grant to Alabama for adult education.  He did not mention his previous dealings with the University at that point.  (Jones was in the news in December 2008 when some Nixon tapes were opened, because Jones had been in charge of Nixon's get out the black vote campaign in 1972.)  He ran for Congress in 1982 (as a Republican) in Atlanta.  This story is beginning to smack of inside baseball, so let me get to the point.  Though Jones did not mention his dealings with UA when his education department awarded us a grant, he had not forgotten. either.  In fact, he saved his rejection letter for decades.   Beginning in the 1960s, Jones began collecting African American art.

Back in 2005 we welcomed him back to the law school to talk to students.  Then, in 2006 the University awarded him an honorary degree.  That degree was given because of his accomplishments as an art collector, rather than to make amends for the ancient wrong.  But in that action, the University renewed a relationship.  And in 2007 Dr. Jones gave a significant portion of his art collection to the University.  And now through his generosity and that of the University, too, Jones is bringing students and artists together.  Ah, what a wonderful story--and what a happy ending to the saga.

I learned a lot from Dr. Jones over the years and from examples he's set.  One of my favorite stories about him, though, is not about his art collection nor his relationship to the University, but about his childhood growing up in Bessemer, Alabama. He sometimes went with his parents to the Bright Star--a legendary restaurant that's still in operation in Bessemer. I highly recommend it next time you're in Birmingham.

 

Because those were the days of Jim Crow, Jones' family could not go in the front door.  So the proprietor would set up a table in the kitchen (or by the kitchen) and the Joneses came in the back door. That was a courageous position for the restaurant in those days, I am reliably informed.  

A while ago I asked Dr. Jones whether he'd been back to Bright Star. And he said "yes. It's still a great restaurant. [Pause] And this time I went in the front door!" Ah, what changes he witnessed over his lifetime--and what changes he was been a part of, and contributed to as well. It's an important lesson of foregiveness and of moving forward.  As we say in the historical memory business, we are far too often burdened by memory.  And we are far too infrequently blessed with the likes of Paul Jones. 

 

Update: The Crimson-White's obituary is here.

Comments

[Ann Bartow]

This is a really wonderful post.