Not many people in America can make this claim: I knew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., personally.
Clarence B. Jones can. Jones not only knew King, he was a close adviser to the distinguished civil rights leader.
Putting his first-hand knowledge of American segregation and the Civil Rights movement to use, the former speechwriter and legal counsel to King will teach 40 undergraduate students at the University of San Francisco this fall as the school’s first diversity scholar.
Students enrolled in the 15-week course titled “From Slavery to Obama” will focus on the beginning and ending of slavery, the segregation era, King and other civil rights events. The class, which began last Thursday, will also feature discussions on 49th anniversary of the March on Washington taking place this Tuesday. Jones assisted King to draft the infamous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered in the nation’s capital. Jones was one of King’s closest advisers.
For nearly five decades, Jones has been involved in civil rights events and received numerous achievements that include helping to outline King’s 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” after King was arrested for non-violently protesting the city’s segregated businesses; aiding in negotiations to end the 1971 Attica Prison riot in New York where 39 people died; and guest of honor in 2008 by the mayor of Paris, France, in naming a public park after King.
Jones is the co-author of two books highlighting behind-the-scenes details about King and the civil rights movement: What Would Martin Say? and Behind the Dream: The Making of a Speech that Transformed a Nation.
Jones, 81, currently serves as an author and scholar-in-residence at Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute.
