Lawyer, business executive, publisher; born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Jones received a B.A. degree from Columbia University in 1953 and his LL.B. degree from Boston University Law School in 1959. As a member of the New York bar, his practice encompassed the worlds of entertainment, corporate finance, and civil rights. He was general counsel, director, and vice-president of the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union; general counsel of the Harlem Cultural Council; counsel to Martin Luther King, Jr.; and special counsel to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). An allied member of the New York Stock Exchange, Jones was a director and vice-president of CBWL-Hayden, Stone Inc., a New York City banking and brokerage firm. Later he became the principal founder of the nation’s first publicly owned multiracial life insurance enterprise, Intramerican Life Corporation, for which venture he was cited as Businessman of the Month by Fortune magazine in June 1965. While Jones was editor and publisher of the New York City newspaper Amsterdam News, he was also board chairman and chief executive officer of its parent company, AmNews Corporation. At the same time he chaired the board of Inner City Broadcasting Corporation, a company that owned and operated a radio station in New York City.