Clarence B. Jones ’53, Civil Rights Activist and Adviser to MLK Jr.

Clarence B. Jones ’53, an attorney, civil rights activist and close adviser to Martin Luther King Jr., died on May 22, 2026, in Cupertino, Calif. He was 95.

In 1963, Jones smuggled out the fragments that became King’s seminal “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in which he declared that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” That same year, Jones also helped plan the March on Washington and write the “I Have a Dream” speech; crucially, he thought to copyright the speech, filing the application and signing it over to King. “I always said to Martin: ‘You just give things away, people come and take advantage of you,’” Jones told CCT in 2008. It became a financial cornerstone for the King estate. “I sometimes think if I made no other contribution, then at least I did that for Martin,” he said.

Jones was born in Philadelphia on Jan. 8, 1931, to Goldsborough and Mary (née Toliver) Jones. His father was a gardener and chauffeur, and his mother was a maid. Without a home of their own, his parents placed him in a foster home in Palmyra, N.J.; as a child, he attended boarding school in Cornwells Heights, Pa., and he graduated from Palmyra H.S. in 1949.

Jones chose the College because it was the school that offered him the most financial assistance; he was a political science major and a two-sport athlete (track and football). But what secured Columbia’s place in his heart, he said, was the support he received during his junior year, when his mother received a terminal cancer diagnosis. Jones wanted to drop out, but then-dean Harry Coleman ’46 worked with his professors to ensure he could receive his assignments at home; friends likewise sent him notes from class.

With the Korean War on, Jones was drafted into the Army three months after graduation. He refused to sign a loyalty oath, however, and served 21 months before receiving an “undesirable” discharge. With the help of the ACLU, he won a reversal to an honorable discharge.

Jones earned a J.D. from Boston University in 1959, then moved to Altadena, Calif., where he practiced entertainment law. He met King a year later, when an NAACP board member recommended that he help defend the civil rights activist, who had been indicted in Alabama for felony tax evasion. Though flattered, Jones said no several times, including after King paid him a personal visit. Then he heard King as a guest preacher at the Baldwin Hills Church in Los Angeles. King chose his topic with his reluctant audience member in mind, speaking on “the role and responsibility of our professional Negroes to help the masses of our people” and weaving in allusions to Jones’ expertise and personal history. As Jones recalled for CCT, afterward he approached King, who had a look on his face “like a Cheshire cat” and said, “You know, Mr. Jones, I never mentioned your name. But preachers, we need examples to prove our point.”

Moved by King’s call to action, Jones asked when he needed him in Alabama.

Jones soon committed himself to the civil rights movement and became a confidante to King and a top fundraiser for his Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was one of the lawyers who represented four Black ministers in the landmark Supreme Court case New York Times v. Sullivan. The libel case became a boon for freedom of the press, as the decision in essence limited public officials’ ability to sue for defamation.

Following King’s assassination in 1968, Jones became the first Black partner in a Wall Street brokerage on the New York Stock Exchange. He was one of the negotiators during the 1971 inmate revolt at Attica and was a principal owner and publisher of The New York Amsterdam News and later, a co-owner of radio station WLIB-AM in Harlem. He taught at Stanford and the University of San Francisco, where he co-founded the Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice.

He wrote about his years with King in the 2023 book Last of the Lions: An African American Journey in Memoir. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2024.

Jones married Anne Norton, with whom he had four children, Christine, Alexia, Clarence Jr. (“Ben”) and Dana, in 1956; they divorced in 1970. A 1976 marriage to Charlotte Schiff ended in divorce in 1984. In 1990, he married Jennifer Poznanski and they had one daughter, Felicia, before divorcing in 2000. He is survived by his five children and his longtime partner, Lin Walters.