Martin Luther King adviser to speak at annual dinner

Although he's a successful businessman, author and professor, Dr. Clarence B. Jones is probably best known for helping draft the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic "I Have a Dream" speech.

Jones will present the keynote address at Southeast Missouri State University's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Dinner on Jan. 22 at the Show Me Center. This year's theme is "Behind the Dream," a university news release said.

In a phone interview with the Southeast Missourian from his Palo Alto, Calif., home, Jones said he has an ethical and moral responsibility to speak about the late civil rights leader. Jones served as a political adviser, counsel and draft speechwriter for King.

Paraphrasing a fable, the 83-year-old said what moves him to speak in places around the world is "if the surviving lions don't tell their stories, the hunters will get all the credit. My job is to tell people about this lion in our pride."

The gist of what he'll tell attendees is that America probably will never see anyone like King again.

"In 12 years and four months from 1956 to April 4, 1968, the date of Dr. King's assassination, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Martin Luther King Jr. may have done more to achieve racial, social, political justice and equality in America than any other person or event in the previous 400-year history of the United States," he said.

Jones holds a bachelor of arts degree from Columbia College in New York, a juris doctor from Boston University's School of Law and a certificate from The New York Institute of Finance and the NASD for his allied membership in the New York Stock Exchange, the release said. He holds an honorary doctorate in communications from Allegheny College and honorary doctorates of humane letters from Drew University, Lincoln University and the University of San Francisco.

Jones first met King in February 1960 when a judge, Hubert T. Delaney, asked Jones to help in King's defense. King had been indicted in Alabama for income-tax evasion and perjury charges, Jones said. At the time, Jones was 29 years old. and King was 31. Jones didn't know much about King, as he had been in law school at Boston University.

Living in California at the time, Jones said he couldn't come to Montgomery, Ala., to help. But King came west for two speaking engagements, and at the suggestion of Delaney, he himself tried to enlist Jones' help.

After King visited Jones at his home, Jones still declined to help King. The next day, Jones received a call from King's personal secretary, Dora McDonald, inviting Jones to a Baptist church in the Baldwin Hills section of Los Angeles, where King would speak the next day.

King talked about the responsibility of African-American professionals to help "our brothers and sisters struggling for our freedom in the South," Jones said in an email to the Southeast Missourian. Jones said King then described the work he was doing in the South.

Jones said he'd never before heard King speak.

"His voice -- he was simply mesmerizing. It was so powerful the way he spoke ...," Jones said. During King's sermon, Jones said he began describing Jones' abilities as a lawyer that had been described to him by Delany and others in New York "for whom he had great respect."

Jones said he knew then what the term "killing me softly" meant.

"He was telling almost 1,500 people my life story," Jones said. After that, Jones said he agreed to help in King's defense in Alabama.

Jones is a visiting professor at the University of San Francisco and scholar writer-in-residence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Research & Education Institute at Stanford University in Palo Alto. Jones plans to take off a semester to complete work on his autobiography, "A Pencil and A Dollar Bill -- Memoirs From An African-American Journey From the Depression to The Election of Barack Obama as President of the United States," he and the news release said.

Jones is co-author of "What Would Martin Say?" and "Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation." He cowrote an e-book, "Uprising: Understanding Attica, Revolution and the Incarceration State" and writes a regular column for the Huffington Post, the release said.

Dr. Allen Gathman is the associate dean for online learning and co-chairman of the event. This is the 50th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington.

"Clarence Jones describes the events leading up to the speech in his book 'Behind the Dream,' and he describes there how he wrote up notes for Dr. King to use. You can actually see in films of the speech the moment when Dr. King looks up from the notes and embarks on the 'I have a dream' section; it was completely extemporaneous," Gathman said in the release. "It is a real honor for Southeast to have Clarence Jones address the Martin Luther King Day celebration. It is not very often that you get the opportunity to hear directly from the people who worked with Dr. King in those historic days. I think I speak for the whole community in saying that we are excited about this event and looking forward to hearing Mr. Jones."

During his career, Jones joined Sanford I. Weill and Arthur Levitt Jr. in Carter, Berlind & Weill as an allied member of the New York Stock Exchange, becoming the first African-American partner in a Wall Street investment banking firm.

He twice has been recognized as Fortune Magazine's Business Man of the Month and founded successful financial, corporate and media-related venture. He has provided legal and financial consulting services to several governments around the world including the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Zambia, the CV said.

Jones coordinated the legal defense of King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference against libel suits filed against them and The New York Times by the police commissioner and other city officials of Birmingham, Ala. The Supreme Court's ruling in the case -- Sullivan vs. The New York Times -- resulted in the landmark decision on libel law.

In April 1963, he drafted a settlement agreement between Birmingham and King to end to demonstrations and segregation of department stores and public accommodations. In September 1971, Jones again found himself at the center of history in the making when, at the request of New York Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, he was asked to help negotiate an end to the Attica prison riot.

Tickets to the dinner are $20 and are sold at the Southeast Bookstore. Tickets also may be bought online at semo.edu/mlk. One hundred free dinner tickets are available to students at Southeast Bookstore. Doors will open at 5 p.m. Jan. 22, with the dinner scheduled to begin at 6:15 p.m. For more information, call 651-2298.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639

Pertinent address:

1333 N. Sprigg St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.