Clarence B. Jones was Martin Luther King’s attorney and friend who helped write his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. He carried King’s lessons into the 21st century. Now it’s my job to keep carrying his.
Clarence B. Jones, adviser to MLK, dies at 95
Clarence B. Jones, a Civil Rights attorney who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington and assisted in drafting MLK’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, has died.
Aug. 28 marks the 63rd anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. For nearly the past 20 years, it’s also been the day that I made or received a phone call from one of the march’s prime architects, Dr. Clarence B. Jones.
We would celebrate the victory of the history-making DC event, talk about its costs and its benefits, and discuss the progress forward for Black Americans … and the gulf we’ve yet to cross as a society.
This year, the phone is silent; Clarence passed away in May at the age of 95. You may not have ever heard of the man, which is exactly how he preferred it. He worked in the shadows of the Civil Rights Movement, supporting the public-facing leaders of the struggle with strategic, legal and financial ideas that unquestioningly solidified its impact on the country.
Netflix’s ‘The Baddest Speechwriter of All’ shows what I saw firsthand
Through Clarence, I learned firsthand just how carefully thought-out and clever the moves that Dr. Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and related organizations made to influence public opinion. His story of copyrighting King’s “I Have A Dream” speech hours before it was delivered alone is a case study in the nexus of instinct, planning, legal knowledge and the power of celebrity. (It remains to this day the unique copyrighted political speech in American history positioned to earn royalties, amounting to millions of dollars over the six decades.)
I suggest you may not have heard of Dr. Jones, because he didn’t toil in absolute anonymity: There was a profile of him in Vanity Fair; an autobiography I was fortunate enough to help him write; an upcoming Netflix documentary short called “The Baddest Speechwriter of All,” codirected by NBA star Stephen Curry and Ben Proudfoot; there’s an opera in the works. All media worth digging into, because Clarence had amazing stories and knew just how to tell them (he wasn’t MLK’s draft speechwriter all those years for nothing).
Ninety-five years is a long time, and most nonagenarians slow down quite a bit in that final stretch. But I can tell you that the fire in Clarence’s belly for equality, compassion, truth and justice never wavered.
He would call and text me as often this past year as he ever had over the two decades we were a writing team, pitching opinion columns with his takes on all the important issues of the day for us to work on.
He never backed down, never worried about losing status, access or favor. He took many lessons from his nonviolent friend Dr. King, yet also quite a few from his meetings with Malcolm X.
Dr. King, in fact, wouldn’t let Clarence march in any of the demonstrations. The first reason was that he knew if some White police officer hit Clarence, he’d hit back twice as hard. The other reason was he needed his lawyer on the outside when he wound up in custody.
Why our book is called ‘Last of the Lions’
Clarence never lost his fight. History tends to turn charming and sepia-toned with age. Dr. King’s legacy these days has too often been considered something of an American racial moment whose time had simply come.
Clarence’s experience told of a much more nuanced, dynamic, precipitous and threatening atmosphere.
It was something that not only wasn’t inevitable, it also defied all odds by having real lasting impact.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were not the kindly doings of a White liberal government – they were dragged into law by a protesting minority revolution motivated by frustrations and misery and were the product of political leverage.
Clarence’s work capturing headlines of police brutality in the face of nonviolent protests opened the eyes of White voters in the north. They in turn magnified the pressure on the Congress that got those laws passed.
He always acknowledged the impact of White people on the movement, and was particularly grateful to our country’s Jewish population, who he knew understood the Civil Rights struggle like no other non-Black group.
Our 2023 book recounting Clarence’s life story carries the title “Last of the Lions,” a nod to the unlikelihood of him outliving the many other leaders of the movement. With the exception of Andrew Young, he was the last part of the Civil Rights brain trust still standing. Harry Belafonte, Rep. John Lewis, C.T. Vivian and Bob Moses all passed while we were writing “Last of the Lions.” James Lawson died while we were still out on the book tour.
Clarence always said he didn’t know why he was given the gift of longevity, but he used it to keep on telling truth to power, holding political leaders accountable, and bringing forward to new generations the powerful message of peaceful change and equality of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.
He would be the first to say, from real lived experience, that progress in our rich and diverse country has ben heartbreakingly uneven, and that lately hate, disenfranchisement, cruelty and scapegoating have made something of a comeback.
He didn’t close his eyes that final evening on a world that lived up to Dr. King’s dream. Not yet, not in his nearly-a-century-long lifetime.
To know Clarence was to be radicalized by him. I certainly had that honor, and it’s my job to keep carrying forward his lessons the way he carried Dr. King’s into the 21st century.
Clarence once said to me, “Stuart, Martin would’ve loved you.” It was high praise. But to have been known, seen, respected and loved by Clarence B. Jones? It doesn’t get better than that for a writer, a true believer, a man who knows that the American Constitution still has some promises to live up to.
Stuart Connelly is an author and filmmaker who cowrote three books with Clarence B. Jones. He is working with Judge Hamilton “Kip” Gayden on “Local Girl: The Forgotten #MeToo Story of Love, Coercion and Survival in the Age of Innocence,” coming out in early 2027.