Clarence B. Jones is the former personal counsel, advisor, draft speech writer and close friend to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He is a Scholar in Residence at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute at Stanford University. He is the author of What Would Martin Say? and "Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation". Following King's arrest in Birmingham April of 1963 for a demonstration violation, Jones secretly took King's hand-written response from jail to eight Birmingham clergymen who had denounced the protests in the newspaper. It was typed and circulated among the Birmingham clergy and later printed and distributed nationally as "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Jones helped secure bail money for King and the other jailed protesters by flying to New York to meet with New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who gave Jones the bail funds directly from the vault of his family's vault at Chase Manhattan Bank.
Jones
continued to function as King's lawyer and advisor through the
remainder of his life, assisting him in drafting the "I Have a Dream"
speech at Jones' house in Riverdale, N.Y and preserving King's copyright
of the momentous address; acting as part of the successful defense team
for the SCLC in New York Times v. Sullivan; serving as part of King's
inner circle of advisers, called the "research committee"; and
contributing with Vincent Harding and Andrew Young to King's "Beyond
Vietnam" address at New York's Riverside Church on 4 April 1967.
Thanks
to Dr. Joe Marshall of the Omega Boys club, and to Mr. Alfred Williams
of the African American Historical and Culture Society, as today, a
small group of us, that included our own freedom activist, Ms. Espanola
Jackson, were pleased to have the chance to visit with the esteemed
member of Dr, King's inner circle along with his good friend Mr. Roy
Clay in the Mayor's Chambers for the proclamation of this May 16th 2012,
Clarence B, Jones Day in San Francisco.