{"id":281,"date":"2026-05-26T19:10:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T19:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=281"},"modified":"2026-05-26T19:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T19:10:18","slug":"clarence-b-jones-civil-rights-activist-who-helped-write-mlks-i-have-a-dream-speech-dies-at-95","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=281","title":{"rendered":"Clarence B. Jones, civil rights activist who helped write MLK\u2019s \u2018I Have A Dream\u2019 speech, dies at 95"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Clarence B. Jones, a top civil rights activist and lawyer who helped write part of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s celebrated \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech, has died. He was 95.<\/p>\n

Read more Vance calls Pope Leo\u2019s AI warnings \u2018profound\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Jones was one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington where King delivered the epic speech and helped push for the passage of the Voting Rights Act two years later which lifted legal barriers preventing African-Americans from voting.<\/p>\n

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Till his death Friday at an assisted living facility in Cupertino, California, Jones remained a keeper of King\u2019s legacy and a vocal critic of attempts to undermine the gains African-Americans have made since the Civil Rights battles in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

Just last month, Jones criticized President Donald Trump\u2019s push to redraw Congressional maps as an effort to weaken Black voting power.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is, Trump is living in a world that doesn\u2019t exist anymore,\u201d Jones said during an appearance at the 69th<\/sup> San Francisco International Film Festival. <\/p>\n

\u201cSure you\u2019re going to have some blips,\u201d Jones said. \u201cBut more powerful than the march of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come. More powerful than the march of many armies or that d— head called President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Jones was at the festival because he was the subject of a documentary called \u201cThe Baddest Speechwriter in the World,\u201d which was directed by Golden State Warriors basketball star Stephen Curry and Oscar-winning filmmaker Ben Proudfoot. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a brilliant strategist, lawyer, author, and philanthropist,\u201d the Rev. Al Sharpton, a fellow civil rights activist and an MS NOW host, said online. \u201cSo many of us owe a great debt to Clarence Jones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born Jan. 8, 1931 in Philadelphia, Jones was the son of a chauffeur and a maid and spent part of his childhood at a Roman Catholic boarding school before returning to his parents. He was drafted into the Army after graduating from Columbia College in 1953 and quickly ran into trouble with the military brass after he refused to sign a loyalty oath.<\/p>\n

Read more Gandalf, Picasso and MLK: Cultural references ground Pope Leo\u2019s AI warning<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1959, Jones earned a law degree from Boston University and headed out west to California where he set up shop as an entertainment lawyer and rubbed elbows with the likes of Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Frank Sinatra.<\/p>\n

But in 1960, Jones was recruited to be part of the legal team that successfully defended King against tax evasion charges brought by the state of Alabama that critics said was an attempt to decapitate the civil rights movement by jailing its leader.<\/p>\n

From then on, Jones became one of King\u2019s top confidantes and a top fundraiser for King\u2019s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

When King was arrested by Alabama authorities for leading demonstrations in the city of Birmingham, it was Jones who smuggled out the \u201cLetter from Birmingham Jail,\u201d in which King wrote that people had a responsibility to follow just laws and a duty to break unjust ones.<\/p>\n

Jones was also on the winning side of the landmark 1964 freedom of the press case, New York Times v. Sullivan, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a public figure must prove a news outlet acted with \u201cactual malice\u201d to win a defamation or libel case. <\/p>\n

After King\u2019s assassination in 1968, Jones continued on with his legal career, became the first Black partner in a Wall Street brokerage on the New York Stock Exchange, and later became the principal owner and publisher of The New York Amsterdam News.<\/p>\n

Jones also taught at both Stanford University and at the University of San Francisco, where was co-founder of USF\u2019s Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice.<\/p>\n

Read more South Carolina\u2019s redistricting effort fails in the state Senate amid GOP opposition<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarence B. Jones, a top civil rights activist and lawyer who helped write part of Dr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-news"],"yoast_head":"\nClarence B. Jones, civil rights activist who helped write MLK\u2019s \u2018I Have A Dream\u2019 speech, dies at 95 - Trusted Moving Group<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=281\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Clarence B. 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